Thoughts of a retired physician

Today is 26 days since Election Day and our deranged president continues to rant and rave that he won the election due to massive fraud and cheating. He continues to embarrass himself and his country with this demented story. His erstwhile legal team has completely imploded, with federal and state courts tossing suits out because they are without basis or merit. A story about one of them, Sidney Powell , is far from flattering and makes one wonder about her mental status. And just hours ago, Trump appeared on Fox claiming the election was rigged and the court system is fixed. I don’t know what to make of Trump and his claims. First, the election result was clear as crystal: Biden won the popular vote by over 6 million and the electoral vote decisively. He is the President-elect and will be inaugurated on 20 January 2021. I think Trump is behaving as he is for a multiplicity of reasons. The first and most obvious is that his fragile ego cannot allow him to view himself as a loser,

  We are witnessing an unprecedented event in the history of the United States. After losing the election to Joseph Biden on November 3rd, Donald Trump has not only refused to concede. He has had a cadre of lawyers file numerous lawsuits attempting to overturn votes (primarily from cities and urban areas with large Black populations) and has retreated into Fortress White House (the White House is now behind a double wall that encircles it, suggesting that he is under siege. It appears that the only activities he currently engages in are tweeting, watching right-wing TV for hours on end, and golfing at his Virginia golf course. His appointee to the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, whose responsibilities include signing off on the election result so that a transition to a new administration can occur, is waffling on doing so.  This situation has never happened before. Trump is directing his loyalists in the administration to do many things that can only be meant to screw up

  This is from the New York Times today, a graph showing the now three distinct waves of COVID-19 across the United States. You do not have to be an epidemiologist or a scientist to see the obvious. On November 13th there were a reported 181,194 new cases of COVID-19 in the USA and the 7-day averages are climbing fast. There were also 68,516 people hospitalized in the United States and multiple states are actually beyond the breaking point: no beds, little PPE, staff maximally stressed with little respite in sight. Many of the cases are in a broad swath of so-called “red states” in the middle of the country but that is illusory. All states are dealing with a massive problem. They are dealing with it largely alone; Donald Trump lost the election because he and his administration presided over the worst failure of public health in a century.  And these are the deaths (also from today’s New York Times ). The USA total today is 245,495 dead . Also three waves but fewer in the second and t

  There is not much else today to tell. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have won a historic victory over Donald Trump. For four years, American democracy was pummeled by a president who broke both norms and laws and used every tweet and public appearance to divide Americans. And make no mistake, we are a divided nation, more so than in 2016. We are approaching 10 million cases of Covid-19 with at least 237,000 deaths and the end is not anywhere in sight. The politically more red states such as North Dakota are leading in cases per 100,000 population daily (176 cases per 100,000 population as of today) and hospitals are again filling up with sick and dying patients. El Paso, TX is reeling as cases rise and hospitals are filled to overflowing; the military is responding to appeals for assistance but Americans must not believe the military is the answer. The medical capabilities for our Army, Navy, and Air Force are limited and there have been calls to reduce their budget. Perhaps one thin

  Happy Halloween -- three days to Election Day (which has been Election Season this year). I have no thoughts to share today. My earnest hope is that the ship of American democracy will right itself and continue on. We will need time in drydock to repair but we have done so before. Until next week.

  Today is Reclamation Day. Conservatives have framed freedom, patriotism, and the American flag as concepts they own and that liberals despise. They do not own them and liberals do not despise them. As such, I want to offer some thoughts on why these ideas belong to all Americans. Freedom first; let’s use the Covid-19 pandemic as a lens. We are in the midst of a global catastrophe that requires application of science and public health principles for control; these principles must be enacted in such a manner that everyone shares the responsibility for them, from the individual up to the national level. The use of masks is central for control of the pandemic and yet has engendered resistance from many Americans. The libertarian and conservative stance is that government has no right to limit their liberty by requiring that they wear a mask. By taking this position they pose a risk to themselves and a risk to others for coronavirus infection.  There is an old saw that says “Your liberty

  Another week has gone by and another year in the history books. The wheels on the Trump bus have come off and he is riding on the rims. Multiple Republicans are now distancing themselves from Trump (that took only four years, but whatever). Trump wanted a second debate, angrily backed out when it was made conditional on being a virtual debate, then jammed a town hall in on NBC when Biden at the exact same time had a town hall scheduled on ABC. The result was dueling town halls in which Trump was laid low by a genuine interviewer (Savannah Guthrie) while Biden was collected, rational, and stayed beyond time to answer questions from the audience with no cameras rolling. Crash and burn, Trump. Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic continues. The United States has experienced an excess of deaths between March and July 2020 of some 225,000, of which at least 150,000 could be attributed to COVID-19 . When compared to 18 other countries, the USA had excessive all-cause mortality which the aut