Anthony's Totally Secret Diary

More cities shut down by the Chinese. Now >800 cases and 26 deaths. State Department issued Level 4 (no travel at all) for Wuhan. Had meeting at EEOB381 (Anthony’s office) to discuss the evolving siautaion with 2019-nCoV. Derek Kan (Deputy Director, OMB) was there with other OMB folks to determine what the budgetary needs would be for our response. I will put together some budget numbers. I was supposed to be on this coming weekend (it is now Friday) This Week With George Stephanopoulos and Face the Nation; however, these were bumped because of impeachment trial that is onging. Call from Lena Sun (Washington Post) trying to verify (I said I knew nothing of this) that people in the USG were saying that the Chinese got to Tedros to convince him not to declare a PHEIC since it would harm their reputation. I told her that was nonsense and I probably stopped her from writing the story. She said since I am in all the important meetings that I would know. CNBC Squawk Box; CBS Radio New York; Massive press interactions prior to and after my briefing of the Senators; Clip of me on CBS This Morning from the briefing

GAME ON!!! Things are changing rapidly. Dr. Ma Xiaowei, the Chinese Minister of Health gave a press statement saying that the incubationperiod of nCoV is 1 to 14 days and that the virus is being transmitted when people are asymptomatic! This has enormous implications for how we handle people from Wuhan (like our diplomats who are now on the way back from WUHAN, having been ordered to evaculate). Should we quarantine them. I am very skeptical about the Chinese interprepation of their data. I spoke with Mike Ryan (WHO) from Geneva and he and Tedros are going to Wuhan soon. Mike is very skeptical that aymptomatic spread is present or at worst is a major driver of spread. Mike Osterholm also feels this way. I spoke with Nancy Messonnier and Bob Redfield this AM to coordinate our responses. Bob and I feel (and I told Elizabeth Cohen this) that we should be allowed to send our CDC epidemiologists to China to work with them so that we see the data first hand since we will base important response activities and strategies based on whether this is true. It would require our quarantining for a period of time even asymptomatic people who arrive from Wuhan. It now appears using epi data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. The infections spread among people weeks before the Chinese reported that they were dealing with a new infection and that gave the virus time to establish itself in multigenerational (sustained) spread. Remember, early on the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and all the original 27 cases were from the market. Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans. There is complete chaos in China now with president Xi Jinping declaring an emergency situation. The Chinese are building within days 1000 and 1300 bed hospitals and flying in hundreds of medical personnel from military. They have shut down travel within most of the country and have called off many Lunar New Year events. Schools closed at least until mid-February. Running out of supplies such as PPE. Had 8:00 PM call with Anthony Ruggiero, Phil Ferro, and Bob Redfield about the evolving situation. The deputiers and White House are pushing to close the borders for any traffic from China. Bob and I are against that. Anthony said that he heard that I wa in favor of that. Will have 11:00 AM meeting tomorrow from SCIF with Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger regarding possibly closing borders from China entry. CNN phone interview with Elizabeth Cohen; CBC Canadian TV; CNN with Fredricka Whitfield (cancelled because of tragic accidental death of Kob Bryant in helicopter crash in LA); NewsHour from UK

Another truly amazing day. Sequested in the White House essentially all day working out a proposal to put before the POTUS that would restrict travel from China. The proposal was driven largely by CDC (Marty Cetron) who felt that given the volume of people coning in from China by direct and even more importantly indirect flights it would be logistically impossible to effectively screen people at many, many airports and the diversion of people from their place of origin to selective airports would further complicate things. Also, the cases continue to sharply rise with 12000 cases and 259 deaths. Also, a NEJM report from Germany indicated that a Chinese woman came from Shanghai visited a colleague in Stockdorf Bavaria. She infected him when she had no sxs, returned to China and got sik on the plane. The german man then got sick and infected 2 other Germans. This would have bn the first truly documented case of transmission from an asymptomatic person, thus, adding to the concern about the accuracy of screening at airports. In addition, the WHO declared a PHEIC yesterday prompting Azar to declare a Public Health Emergency here in the USA. I disagreed with the latter since there were only 7 infections (6 travel) at the time. All this led to the conclusion of travel restriction. This was late in the afternoon - around 1:30-2:00 PM. The entire task force (above) plus Kellyanne Conway, Jessica Zitto (WH Coms) and a variety oof senior WH officials gatherd in the Roosevelt Room to hammer out how we would present this to the POTUS. The policy decision was: 1) Ban travel to the USA of all non-citizens who have been to China within the past 14 days. If you were in China, you need to go somewhere else (Paris, UK, etc.) until 14 days pass from the time you were in China. 2) If you are a citizen and were in the Hubei Province (includes Wuhan) and you return to USA, you are institutionally quarantined for 14 days. 3) If you come from any other part of China other than Hubei, you have voluntary isolation for 14 days. We wanted to present this to the POTUS befor the Stock Market closed so that we do not look like we held off to avoid bad effects. We went into the Oval Office at about 3:00 PM. We had been scheduled to go in at 2:30 PM but things backed up. Presentation was made to the POTUS by Azar, Bob Redfield and me. Trump as he did a couple of ddays ago posed many questions to me making sure that I thought it was a good idea. I said this was an imperfect process, but the best choice we have right now. He questioned me about what the difference was between this and flu. He somewhat brashly suggested even more stringent restrictions and was dyswaded by Kellyanne. She clearly has influence over the POTUS. Potus agreed and we immediately went out to the WH Press Briefing room that was packed. Azar led the presentation, but many questions were ansered by me. Interesting that impeachment was going on and the senate did not get the 4 GOP votes to allow witnesses to be called. This also dominated the news. We thought this would get us on the Sunday Talk Shows, but impeachment bumped us. White House is now fully convinced that I be the science/health spokesperson for the USG. Bob Redfield just does not come across very weel. He takes forever to say something and it is usually wondering. This drives the WH and HHS comms people crazy and so they are putting me out on all the requests. When I got back to my office, got call from Jeremy Farrar who sounded very concerned and conferenced me in with Kristian Anderson, an evolutionary biologist from Scripps. They had also been talking with Eddie Holmes, another evolutionary biologistfrom Sidney Australia. There have been conspiracy theories that the virus was given GOF by inserted mutations and deliberately or accidentally released in Wuhan. One theory was written by Indian investigators that HIV sequences were inserted by a Chinese person in Canada and released in Wuhan. Everyone thinks that is crazy, but the Farrar phone call was different. The people on the phone felt that the mutations around the furine cleavage site of the spike protein could not have occurred naturally since it would require an evolutionary “jump that they found nowhere in bat isolates. They bring up the possibility that this could have been deliberately inserted and either accidentally released or deliberately released by a crazy person in the lab, the former being the most likely. Jeremy was calling me for advice. I suggest that we get a larger group of qualified evolutionary biologists/virologists together under the auspices of a convening body and carefully look at this. We agreed to convene by phone the next day. I called Brian Harrison and Garrett Grigsby who arranged for a call with Azar to decide what to do. Azar did not like the idea of WHO as convener because he feels (somewhat unfairly, I believe) that Tedros would immediately tell the Chinese and they would crush the attempt and/or think we are attacking them. We decided to have a 2-pronged approach strongly suggested by Kadlec who felt we had security responsibilities to investigate this ourselves. He would do this through OSTP and NAS. Meanwhile I would pursue a multinational approach with Jeremy. I decided to now bring in Francis. PRESS: The Today Show NBC; Lou Dobbs Fox; many print

Conference call at 2:00 PM with Jeremy, Francis and several other scientists gathered by Jeremy (see below). Participants in the Feb., 2020 call included: • Francis Collins, Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S.; • Anthony Fauci, Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, U.S.; • Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust; • Patrick Vallance, U.K. Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Science and Engineering; • Kristian Anderson, Director of Infectious Disease Genomics, Scripps Research Translational Institute, CA, U.S.; • Christian Drosten, Director of Human Virology at the German Center for Infection Research at Charité – Universitätsmedizin, Germany; • Edward Holmes, Professor of Viral Evolution at University of Sydney; • Andrew Rambaut, Professor of Molecular Evolution, University of Edinburgh’s Institute of Evolutionary Biology, U.K.; • Ron Fouchier, Deputy Head of Department of Viroscience, Erasmus Medical Center, NL; • Robert Garry, Professor of Virology, Tulane University School of Medicine, Louisana, U.S. ; • Mike Ferguson, Professor of Life Sciences at University of Dundee, U.K.; and • M.P.G. Koopmans, Head of Department of ViroScience, Erasmus Medical Center, NL. There was not total agreement about the likelihood of deliberate insertion. Ron Fouchier said he was sure that this could occur naturally and we should not waste our time and divert effort to pursue this. This is expected of him since he was the original GOF person with Yoshi Kawaoka. Also, Christian Drosten was with Ron; the rest felt that deliberate insertion was possible and given the fact that Dr. Zheng-Li Shi at the University of Wuhan has been working for years in GOF in coronaviruses to allow adaptation of the spike protein to bind to the human ACE2 receptor, we could not let this go. We decided to have Jeremy with Francis to contact Tedros with Stewart Simonson’s help (I arranged this) to see if Tedros would convene experts. Meanwhile, the DHS and DOT and FAA are working hard on the logistics of diverting plans to selected airports that are associated with the capability of screening with questions and quarantining or moving to voluntary isolation. Airports are: LAX, SFO, Seattle, ATL, ORD, Hawaii, Newark, IAD, Detroit, DFW JFK, and Seattle PRESS: CNN (truck came to my house since I was so busy with wall-to-wall conference calls and hundreds of e-mails.;

45,172/1115 Individual reports are coming out about various clinical characteristics. Unreviewed report now of virus in saliva of infected people. Let us see what kind of reponse that gets. Very busy day today with 4 Congressionald briefings! Also, complicated by wake of Eric Scorce today and funeral tomorrow. Much stress. First we briefed House members at Rayburn led by Rosa DeLauro, Nita Lowey and Tom Cole. Then we went to the Senate Dirksen to brief senators led by Lamar Alexander. Then to Capitol Visitors center to brief House members led by Eliot Engel. Then to Majority hosue leader Steny Hoyer’s office to brief members. Steny was profuse in his praise for me, which was a little embarrassing On my way out of White House from the 4:00 to 5:00 PM Task Force meeting, ran into Larry Kudlow, who has become my new best friend. He joked about how many years I have been doing this and he has been following my career. His main question was when is this COVID19 going to crash the economy, i.e. when does he need to start worrying about it. It told him that we are OK for now but this could change rapidly if we start seing sustained person-to-person transmission. He asked me to keep him informed when in my opinion things are starting to go bad Having our second big multipeson conference call this AM with Mike Ryan, Tedros and WHO, Bruce Aylward (Canadian) called from China. He is part of WHO multi-national advance team in China. Still no invitation for US representation from China to be part of group. Azar getting very angry and blaming Tedros for not pushing with China to get us on the group. Azar feels that Tedros in bowing to Xi Jinping who does not want USA. Tough situation since Tedros and WHO depends greatly on China and often bows to them. PRESS: WTOP Radio; Bloomberg TV (by phone;

435,000/20,000; USA – 54,622/749. On WHO weekly call. China removing restrictions – critical to watch this closely to determine what happens in light of what POTUS is trying to do in reducing restrictions by Easter . Giuseppe Ippolitto reporting from Italy – major restrictions of non-essential industries. Good control in Central and Southern Italy. Lombardy still very bad. People moving from North to South bringing cases to South. Contact tracing impossible in major outbreak areas. Deaths mostly in older (>60 yo) people. From Italy – no evidence of bad effects of ACE inhibitors on COVID-19, hence no need to change meds. CHINA – in regions where they have gone doen to no cases, they are seeing reintroductions from imported travel cases. Big problem. Also, need to get infected people out of the homes since they are secondarily infected the rest of the family → family clusters. Discussed the issue of loss of sense of smell as an early sign of COVID-19. At TF meeting, Jared still throwing barbs at CDCbecause they did not nail down the recommendations for returning critical infrastructure (CI) people to work after an exposure where they did not kno if they were infected, but were asymptomatic. Metagain with POTUS in Oval. He really acting like he is very fond of me, always deferring to me. His staff definitiely notices this (Hope Hicks, Kellyanne Conway). I believe that the mole who does not like me is Alexa, the Comms person. Hogan is OK. Devin is getting better and Katie Miller is great (tough, smart,but great). Interesdting couple with Steve Miller. At press conference, it went well as I fashion a new slant for each presser. I apologized to reporter Philip Wegmann for answering him sharply when he asked what I thought about Tedros favoring the Chinese. He wrote me a nice note afterwards. Big issue from the appearance on CNN Cuomo Prime Time was when I answered the question about the timeline to re-open the USG, I said “we do not determine the timeline, the virus determines the timeline”. That will not play well among some of the POTUS staff. PRESS: Bob Rose Radio (Gainesville, FL); WABC Radio (NYC) Bernie and Sid Show; CNN Cuomo Prime Time

August 28, 2020 – Global USA • Amazing that there were no leaks to the press following the powder attack. Still >40,000 cases per day Email exchange with Kellyanne Conway on the announcement of her leaving the WH: Dear Dr. Fauci – What a kind and welcome note. Thank you for taking the time. Indeed, it has been a pleasure working with and learning from you over the past 6 months in the face of a global pandemic. You may be “America’s Doctor,” but you also are accessible and affable. Thank you for your many kindnesses. I hope you are feeling better following surgery, and that you will heal quickly and completely. God bless you. Always here for you, if I may help in any way. Fondly, Kellyanne KAConway@gmail.com 202-251-9943 From: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Sent: Monday, August 24, 2020 7:22 AM To: Conway, Kellyanne E. EOP/WHO <KAC@who.eop.gov> Subject: miss you Kellyanne: I was sorry to read in the Post today that you will be leaving the White House at the end of the month. However, your reasons appear to be quite sound and your usual good judgment seems to have prevailed. I really will miss seeing you around the Sit Room and the Oval. You light up the room and I always feel a little better when you are around. Take care of yourself and I hope that we continue to run into each other in the future. Warm regards, Tony Anthony S. Fauci, MD Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Building 31, Room 7A-03 31 Center Drive, MSC 2520 National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD 20892-2520 Phone: (301) 496-2263 FAX: (301) 496-4409 E-mail: afauci@niaid.nih.gov pandemics, would you want to stay in a role where you were suddenly constantly criticized and undermined by your current administrator and were receiving death threats? Al Jazeera TV (UK); August 29, 2020 – Global – 24,600,000/834,000; USA - ,99,000/181,000 Found out from George Adams and Brett Rowland that similar powdered letters from the same person (from Jacksonville. FL) also were sent to Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Bill Gates, among other “liberals” . August 30, 2020 (Sunday) – Global – 25,000,000/840,000 USA – 5,900,000/182,000 Sunday shows dominated by recent GOP convention and the blatant lies that Trump spewed forth during the convention. Also, to hold a conventin event directly at the White House is a gross violation of the Hatch Act. Concern now about post-labor day (coming up) surge of cases as people congregate. Spoke with Joan Baez today – She wants to use the portrait of me to advertise the need for science and adhering to public health messages. In essence, she wants to use the portrait in PSAs. She really is wonderful. August 31, 2020 – Global USA Trump stoking violence (racial tensions) in Kenosha, WI and Portland, OR QAnon misrepresenting data from CDC that says that about 9000 out of the >180,000 deaths reported for COVID-19 had only COVID-19 on the death certificate. The remainder also had other underlying conditions. QAnon is saying that all the other deaths had nothing to do with COVID-19. The POTUS loves this and is tweeting that Fauci and Birx shut down the country for only 9000 deaths. What an idiot!! See below: Cases/day are not dramatically falling. Looks like they may be plateauing again Got called down to White House to do the Governors’s call. PRESS: Washington Post Article indicating that Scott Atlas is pushing for a “herd immunity” approach to the outbreak and said he was the “anti-Fauci” in the White House. New York Times article will come put today with same story. September 1, 2020 – Global 25,300,000/848,000; USA – 6,000,000/184,000 Did the usual weekly Miami Mayor’s call with Deb and Redfield. Mayor Suarez and Major Jimenez Another inappropriate explosion by Mark Meadows. The NUH Treatment Guidelines came out in response to the EUA for convalescent plasma (CP). It just repeated what it had said before saying that there was not sufficient evidence for or against the use of CP and that clinical trials should continue. In essence, this is what the EUA said. However, the press went nuts saying that NIH contradicted the FDA and the POTUS who said that CP was a “major historic breakthrough”. In fact, the EUA and the Guidelines were aligned. It was the POTUS, AZAR, and Hahn who over-exaggerated. In any event, Meadows called up Francis Collins and started screaming saying that he needs to “fix this”. Meadows said until he does, Fauci and you will not get in front of a TV screen “even for a podcast with a 3rd grader”. Francis sent out a tweet to explain that there was no difference between the EUA and the Guidelines and Meadows was satisfied. Another day in Paradise….. PRESS: ABC Good Morning America; Taped Today Show (NBC) - Sheinelle Jones – concerning my vocal cord surgery; NBC Nightly News September 2, 2020 – Global – 25,600,000/854,000; USA - 6,000,000/184 PRESS: MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell; September 3, 2020 – Global – 25,800,000/860,000; USA – 6,100,000/185,100 Big concern about a potential upsurge following Labor Day Weekend. I am emphasizing this on TV hits (see below) PRESS: CNN with Jim Sciutto; Katie Couric podcast; Marc Siegel Doctor Radio; NBC Nightly News September 4, 2020 – Global – 26,300,000/864,000; USA – 6,100,000/186,000 PRESS: Global News Canada TV; STAT interview – Joseph Andrew; CNN Situation Room with Jim Acosta September 5, 2020 Global – 26,500,000/871,000; USA 6,200,000/187,200 PRESS: New York Times print interview regarding Labor Day weekend and COVID; September 6, 2020 – Global USA PRESS: Sunday dominated by election September 7, 2020 - Global USA PRESS: Spoke with Robyn Ross of the Washington Post Magazine. She is writing a piece on my “Bobblehead”. September 8, 2020 – Global USA Had weekly Miami Mayor’s call with Deb Birx and Miami Mayors Gimenez and Suarez September 9, 2020 – Bob Woodward’s book “Rage” just came out today causing a media fire storm since it has Trump saying that he knew along along that COVID-19 was very serious, but he played it down to not frighten the American public. Some potentially damaging stuff about me. Woodward always said my discussions with him were “background” and not “on the record”. Yet he has others giving quotes by me that sounds like on the record. For example: CNN: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration's top infectious disease expert, is quoted telling others Trump's leadership was "rudderless" and that his "attention span is like a minus number." "His sole purpose is to get reelected," Fauci told an associate, according to Woodward. Washington Post: The book charts the Trump administration’s failings and missteps on the pandemic, including the decisions and actions of Pottinger, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci and others. Fauci at one point tells others that the president “is on a separate channel” and unfocused in meetings, with “rudderless” leadership, according to Woodward. “His attention span is like a minus number,” Fauci said, according to Woodward. “His sole purpose is to get reelected.” In one Oval Office meeting recounted by Woodward, after Trump had made false statements in a news briefing, Fauci said in front of him: “We can’t let the president be out there being vulnerable, saying something that’s going to come back and bite him.” Pence, Kushner, chief of staff Mark Meadows and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller tensed up at once, Woodward writes, surprised Fauci would talk to Trump that way. Woodward describes Fauci as particularly disappointed in Kushner for talking like a cheerleader as if everything was great. In June, as • Went on FOX News with John Roberts and unfortunately gave impression that I was defending Trump since I answered John’s question about did I ever see Trup play down COVID. I answered that we briefed him in the Oval and he would come out and not really contradict us. I should have said that he does play down COVID such as when he said it would “disappear like a miracle”. PRESS: CBS This Morning; LBC UK Radio; Latin Leaders Magazine; FOX News with John Roberts; Celine Grounder podcast; Instagram with Jennifer Garner September 10, 2020 – Did podcast and PSAs with Dennis Quaid Gave Grand Rounds to the Harvard Hospitals (all of them together). Much positive feedback PRESS: Interview and photo shoot with Alice Park for TIME Magazine September 11, 2020 - Global – 28,000,000/905,000; USA – 6,400,000/191,400 • I corrected with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC (see below) what I should have said to John Roberts on FOX • Had great dinner over my house with Peter Staley (and his dog Stella) with Chris, Janet Tobias and John…. PRESS: Interview with Newsweek – Fred Guteri; MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell; CNN Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer September 12, 2020 September 13, 2020 Important Day!! – POTUS called me up at around 11:20 AM (Sunday) and started a diatribe about my interview on Friday with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. He went on and on about how negative I was on the show. He said that I was great on Thursday with John Roberts (FOX) and so “what happened” to make me negative. I tried to explain to him that the entire message was not all negative. I was really saying that there is a risk with the upticks in ND, SD, MT and other states for a surge if we do not intensify the public health measures of masks, distance, crowds, etc. I emphasized that what I was saying is that we can control this without having to shut down. As soon as I mentioned the word “shut down” he went off saying we will never again shut down as if I was suggesting that we would when I was saying just the opposite. He then went off on asking about vaccines and saying that I should take credit for success instead emphasizing failures. It really was stream of consciousness. We ended the call on a friendly note, but it was clear that he did not want me to do this anymore. He mentioned whether or not I like Trump, I should not do this. I told him that I do not dislike him and he knows that. He agreed. I will either have to stay off TV or continue to disappoint him since I cannot change my message. This evening when I went up to Chef Geoff’s to pick up carry out hamburgers for me and Brett Rowland, every outdoor table serving Chef Geoff and Al Dente was occupied and every person at the tables gave me a roaring round of applause as I left Chef Geoff’s with my food. It blew me and Brett away. Very moving. September 14, 2020 – Global – 29,000,000/922,000; USA – 6,500,000/194,000 Michael Caputo went crazy. Article in NY Times has him raving about conspiracy theories; “Trump Health Aide Pushes Bizarre Conspiracies and Warns of Armed Revolt” by Sharon LaFraniere Europe is starting to surge: September 15, 2020 – Global – 29,200,000/927,000; USA 6,500,000/194,000 Had virtual press conference with Gov. Phil Scott (R-VT). They are doing very well with test positivity of 0.2% Had call with Miami Mayors (weekly event) with Deb and Bob Redfield Did 1 hour briefing of Congressional Progressive Caucus (liberal Dems) Task Force meeting. VP gave me a signed enlarged photo of he and I. PRESS: See above press conference in VT; NPR with Joe Palca (pre-recorded for later date); September 16, 2020 – Global - 29,400,000; 931,000; USA – 6,600,000/195,100 Did Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Leadership Conference with Sanjay Gupta moderating PRESS:Bloomberg News Podcast – David Rubenstein; Business Insider interview; BMJ Podcast; Wall Street Journal podcast interview; Wall Street Journal online event September 17, 2020 – Global USA Was a panelist on the “CEO Global Perspectives Series Webcast (Oxford, UK) with Michael Earl (Moderator) and Sir John Bell (co-panelist). Great discussion comparing UK and USA experience. Presented to ONE Board on COVID-19 – Bono, Josh Bolten, and Sheryl Sandberg was on the Zoom Michael Caputo diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma metastatic to cervical lymph node. – head and neck cancer. PRESS: WTOP Radio; MSNBC TV – Chris Hayes September 18, 2020 – New cases today at 43,000 Testing has decreased and so hospitalizations per 100 case has increased since we are missing asymptomatics (see note above) PRESS: Interview with La Repubblica; September 19, 2020 Global – 30,400,000/950,000; USA – 6,700,000/198,100 The 4 Presidents from the Washington Nationals came to my house today to present me with the “Sammie” Award as the Outstanding Federal Employee. Had many cameras filming the event. September 20, 2020 (Sunday) Global USA Yet again, I am not allowed on Sunday Shows while Brett Giroir is doing SOTU. Signs in NYC subway stations: Lot of discussion about the transverse myelitis in a volunteer in the UK Chimp Ad Oxford trial. May have had a prior case, but was designated as multiple sclerosis. Trial re-started in UK; not yet in USA (the AZ trial) Scott Atlas deliberately trying to undermine Deb Birx interpretation of the data September 21, 2020 – Global USA Was on weekly Governors call via phone. Explained to them about vaccine protocol, i.e. Data to DSMB to Company to FDA for EUA/BLA to VRPAC advisory committee. All transparent to scientific community. 104 million tests performed in the USA Had wonderful time at Adrienne Asche’s home 2221 – 30th Street, NW. Outdoor concert with NPO (National Pops Orchestra led by Luke Frazier. Adrienne called me out and Luke Dedicated a song to me (Climb Every Mountain). Everyone masked and physically distant with champage at each separate table of people alone or withspouses. Present were Ambassadors from Iraq, Mexico, Colombia, and UK PRESS: Did a series of YouTube chats with Trevor Noah; Fat Joe; The Onyx Family; and The SloMo Guys; The Daily Beast – Erin Banco; CNN Jeremy Diamond Story broke in the Daily Beast: A Notorious COVID Troll Actually Works for Dr. Fauci INSIDE JOB Bill Crews is a PR official at the National Institutes of Health. But he also has another job: an anonymous RedState editor who rails against the agency for which he works. Lachlan Markay September 22, 2020 Global USA PRESS: CNN Citizen Conference with Sanjay Gupta; Interview with The Atlantic Festival with Alexis Madrigal was carried on CNN and other networks September 23, 2020 – Global – 31,400,000/966,666; USA – 6,900,000/200,000 For Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People, I was ranked #1 among the “Leaders” category THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2020 BACK TO HOME Anthony Fauci Stefan Ruiz for TIME BY JIMMY KIMMEL SEPTEMBER 22, 2020 9:34 PM EDT A s the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread to the U.S., there was one person millions of Americans immediately knew we could turn to for guidance: Dr. Anthony Fauci. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Fauci has advised six Presidents over 36 years. When COVID-19 reared its ugly head, he was among the first to step forward with facts and only facts. Dr. Fauci doesn’t sugarcoat his words and refuses to be pressured by politicians. He delivers the truth, as difficult as it may be to hear, earnestly and with one goal: to save lives. His courage and candor have earned our trust. We are all fortunate to have a man of his wisdom, experience and integrity to help us navigate these difficult waters. Kimmel is the host and an executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live! LEADERS • Anthony Fauci • Kamala Harris • Tsai Ing-wen • John Roberts • Xi Jinping • Donald Trump • Caesar • Angela Merkel • Joe Biden • Jair Bolsonaro • Nancy Pelosi • Narendra Modi • William Barr • Anne Hidalgo • Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus • Mary Kay Henry • Nemonte Nenquimo • Ursula von der Leyen • Jung Eun-kyeong • Bonnie Castillo • Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum • Yousef Al Otaiba Note of appreciation from Senator Feinstein: Note to Dr. Fauci 9.23.20.pdf Had Hearing today at the Senate HELP committee Chaired by Sen. Alexander (RTN) and ranking minority Sen. Murray (D-WA). Had hostile interaction with Se. Rand Paul. I really stuffed him as he spouted out bullshit acting like he is a experienced epidemiologist. Did Smithsonian sponsored “chat” with Alan Alda. We are very fond of each other. Went very well. Interviewed with Jon Cohen for an HBO documentary that Jon is doing with David France on COVID-19 PRESS: Much press about my encounter with Sen. Paul September 24, 2020 – Global USA Still >40K cases per day: • Made major presentation (virtually) to the World Vaccine Congress • Given the mixed messages from FDA and CDC (with CDC stumbling all over themselves in first saying do not test asymptomatics and then saying yes, test them. Also, first saying aerosol is important and then saying it is not). POTUS now saying he may not wait for the 60 day “wait for safety rule” following the time 50% of the vaccines receive their last dose for the implementation of an EUA. FDA (Steve Hahn) says he will listen to his career scientists and have this be part of the EUA criteria, while the POTUS has hinted he would over-rule this and get an EUA out right away, i.e. before the election. PRESS: Did press conference with Governor Murphy (D-NJ) – appeared live on ABC; did Face Book LIVE with Francis Collins on Janssen Vaccine; Did “Fireside Chat” with Carlos Del Rio moderated by Sanjay Gupta (clearly will appear on CNN) September 25, 2020 - Global – 32,100,000/980,000; USA – 6,900,000/292,300 Have not mentioned this, but threats and harassments of my children continue, particularly of letters and texts to Megan. These assholes have her home address and write to her threatening me, which is quite disturbing to her. We have sent all of this to Brett Rowland (security) who is Herd Immunity Study PRESS: Appeared in Newsweek: Rand Paul Cited Against Fauci Actually Refutes Senator's Claim By Hannah Osborne On 9/25/20 at 7:56 AM EDT UK Channel 4 TV News; Late, Late TV Show in Ireland by Zoom; Instagram with Peter Staley; JAMA Podcast (usually gets picked up by networks); USA Today Interview; Interview with Donald McNeil of NY Times re: Herd immunity and Scott Atlas September 26, 2020 – Major conflict between Deb and Atlas. See below with Deb’s daily report. Atlas says that we do not need to test for asymptomatics since the only thing that counts is preventing vulnerable people from dying. He does not see the connection between asymptomatic young people (without hospitalization and deaths rising → older and vulnerable (with later hospitalization and deaths rising). We are heading to a major clash between deb/me/Bob versus Atlas Jon LaPook has been wanting to do a 60 Minutes Special focused on me and Comms has been disking around without responding. Francis and I sent e-mails to Alyssa Farah and she apologized saying that she will approve 90% of requests for me and refuse ONLY those that are obviously politically charged. Up to this point, 95% of requests for me have be refused or ignored by the WH/HHS. They truly are dysfunctional even though I believe that Alyssa is a good person. Medai-Ite Joe Biden Promises to Hire Dr. Anthony Fauci ‘Minutes After The Race Is Called’ By Tommy Christopher , 12:28 pm 116 Comments September 27, 2020 – Global – 32,700,000/991,000; USA – 7,060,000/204,000 Things really getting crazy. Irish thought that I was physically present in Dublin for the Late Late show interview (see above on Sept. 25) and they demonstrated against me: Protesters outside RTÉ last night were convinced top US doctor had flown in for the show By Sarah Finnan September 26, 2020 at 9:15am Share: Protestors outside 'fake news HQ RTÉ' last night seemed to think that top US doctor Anthony Fauci had flown in from DC especially for the show. PRESS: Sunday and still no show appearances – all turned down by HHS and/or WH. RAI TV live in Italy; September 28, 2020 – Global USA Dr. Fauci Top 20 Highly Cited Papers (Based on Web of Science, 09/28/2020) 1. Roberts AB, Sporn MB, Assoian RK, et al. “TRANSFORMING GROWTHFACTOR TYPE-BETA - RAPID INDUCTION OF FIBROSIS AND ANGIOGENESIS INVIVO AND STIMULATION OF COLLAGEN FORMATION INVITRO.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 1986;83(12):4167-4171. [2,613 citations] 2. Hoffman, G. S., G. S. Kerr, R. Y. Leavitt, C. W. Hallahan, R. S. Lebovics, W. D. Travis, M. Rottem, and A. S. Fauci. 1992. "Wegener Granulomatosis: An Analysis of 158 Patients." Annals of Internal Medicine 116 (6): 488-498. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-116-6-488. [2,060 citations] 3. Koenig, S., H. E. Gendelman, J. M. Orenstein, M. C. Dal Canto, G. H. Pezeshkpour, M. Yungbluth, F. Janotta, A. Aksamit, M. A. Martin, and A. S. Fauci. 1986. "Detection of AIDS Virus in Macrophages in Brain Tissue from AIDS Patients with Encephalopathy." Science 233 (4768): 1089-1093. doi:10.1126/science.3016903. [1,663 citations] 4. Pantaleo, G., C. Graziosi, J. F. Demarest, L. Butini, M. Montroni, C. H. Fox, J. M. Orenstein, D. P. Kotler, and A. S. Fauci. 1993. "HIV Infection is Active and Progressive in Lymphoid Tissue during the Clinically Latent Stage of Disease." Nature 362 (6418): 355-358. doi:10.1038/362355a0. [1,649 citations] 5. Fauci, A. S., B. F. Haynes, P. Katz, and S. M. Wolff. 1983. "Wegener's Granulomatosis: Prospective Clinical and Therapeutic Experience with 85 Patients for 21 Years." Annals of Internal Medicine 98 (1): 76-85. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-98-1-76.. [1,646 citations] 6. Hunder, G. G., D. A. Bloch, B. A. Michel, M. B. Stevens, W. P. Arend, L. H. Calabrese, S. M. Edworthy, et al. 1990. "The American College of Rheumatology 1990 Criteria for the Classification of Giant Cell Arteritis." Arthritis & Rheumatism 33 (8): 1122-1128. doi:10.1002/art.1780330810. [1,609 citations] 7. Lane, H. C., H. Masur, L. C. Edgar, G. Whalen, A. H. Rook, and A. S. Fauci. 1983. "Abnormalities of B-Cell Activation and Immunoregulation in Patients with the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome." New England Journal of Medicine 309 (8): 453-458. doi:10.1056/NEJM198308253090803. [1,579 citations] 8. Kehrl, J. H., L. M. Wakefield, A. B. Roberts, S. Jakowlew, M. Alvarez-Mon, R. Derynck, M. B. Sporn, and A. S. Fauci. 1986. "Production of Transforming Growth Factor β by Human T Lymphocytes and its Potential Role in the Regulation of T Cell Growth." Journal of Experimental Medicine 163 (5): 1037-1050. doi:10.1084/jem.163.5.1037. [1,559 citations] 9. Fauci, A. S. 1988. "The Human Immunodeficiency Virus: Infectivity and Mechanisms of Pathogenesis." Science 239 (4840): 617-622. doi:10.1126/science.3277274. [1,523 citations] 10.Leavitt, R. Y., A. S. Fauci, D. A. Bloch, B. A. Michel, G. G. Hunder, W. P. Arend, L. H. Calabrese, et al. 1990. "The American College of Rheumatology 1990 Criteria for the Classification of Wegener's Granulomatosis." Arthritis & Rheumatism 33 (8): 1101-1107. doi:10.1002/art.1780330807. [1,392 citations] 11.Chun, T. -W, L. Stuyver, S. B. Mizell, L. A. Ehler, J. A. M. Mican, M. Baseler, A. L. Lloyd, M. A. Nowak, and A. S. Fauci. 1997. "Presence of an Inducible HIV-1 Latent Reservoir during Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 94 (24): 13193-13197. doi:10.1073/pnas.94.24.13193. [1,317 citations] 12.Masi, A. T., G. G. Hunder, J. T. Lie, B. A. Michel, D. A. Bloch, W. P. Arend, L. H. Calabrese, et al. 1990. "The American College of Rheumatology 1990 Criteria for the Classification of churg-strauss Syndrome (Allergic Granulomatosis and Angiitis)." Arthritis & Rheumatism 33 (8): 1094-1100. doi:10.1002/art.1780330806. [1,287 citations] 13.Fauci, A. S., B. F. Haynes, and P. Katz. 1978. "The Spectrum of Vasculitis. Clinical, Pathologic, Immunologic, and Therapeutic Considerations." Annals of Internal Medicine 89 (5 I): 660-676. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-89-5-660. [1,272 citations] 14.Arend, W. P., B. A. Michel, D. A. Bloch, G. G. Hunder, L. H. Calabrese, S. M. Edworthy, A. S. Fauci, et al. 1990. "The American College of Rheumatology 1990 Criteria for the Classification of Takayasu Arteritis." Arthritis & Rheumatism 33 (8): 1129-1134. doi:10.1002/art.1780330811. [1,234 citations] 15.Kerr, G. S., C. W. Hallahan, J. Giordano, R. Y. Leavitt, A. S. Fauci, M. Rottem, and G. S. Hoffman. 1994. "Takayasu Arteritis." Annals of Internal Medicine 120 (11): 919-929. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-120-11-199406010-00004. [1,111 citations] 16.Pantaleo G, Graziosi C, Fauci AS. THE IMMUNOPATHOGENESIS OF HUMANIMMUNODEFICIENCY-VIRUS INFECTION. New England Journal of Medicine. 1993;328(5):327-335. [946 citations] 17.Fauci AS, Dale DC, Balow JE. GLUCOCORTICOSTEROID THERAPY - MECHANISMS OF ACTION AND CLINICAL CONSIDERATIONS. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1976;84(3):304-315. [931 citations] 18.Morens, D. M., G. K. Folkers, and A. S. Fauci. 2004. "The Challenge of Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases." Nature 430 (6996): 242249. doi:10.1038/nature02759. [899 citations] 19.Fauci AS, Macher AM, Longo DL, et al. ACQUIRED IMMUNODEFICIENCY SYNDROME - EPIDEMIOLOGIC, CLINICAL, IMMUNOLOGICAL, AND THERAPEUTIC CONSIDERATIONS. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1984;100(1):92-106. [887 citations] 20.Folks TM, Justement J, Kinter A, Dinarello CA, Fauci AS. CYTOKINE-INDUCED EXPRESSION OF HIV-1 IN A CHRONICALLY INFECTED PROMONOCYTE CELLLINE. Science. 1987;238(4828):800-802. [872 citations] PRESS: Good Morning America TV; The Netherlands TV – Nieuwsuur; Canadian Journalism Foundation World News Day with Brian Stelter (Web TV); Steph Curry – State of Inspiration Interview; Aspen Institute – Fireside Chat with Helen Clark former PM of New Zealand September 29, 2020 - Global - 33,200,000/1,000,000; USA – 7,100,000/205,000 Cases increasing in certain regions (see below). Hospitalization starting to creep up. Deaths will follow. Total deaths have plateaued and so as deaths go down in certain regions, which is true, deaths that increase in other regions result in a net flat curve. Again, today big dispute between Deb (backed by me) and Atlas. Atlas feels that after a city/town/state reach their peak, the turn around has nothing to do with any intervention that we apply. He insists that the city/state has reached herd immunity. He also cherry picks papers on T cell immunity and says that cross-reacting T cell immunity accounts for: the 22% ab positive in NYC + 25 % T cell immunity = herd immunity. He feels that all we need to do in protect the vulnerables in nursing homes and we will be OK. No need to test and no need to worry about community spread. 1st Presidential Debate tonight. Horrible “shit show”. Trump was embarrassing, continually interrupting Biden, bullying all the way, making no sense, lying. Moderator Chris Wallace could not control him. Trump refused to denounce White Supremacists and when asked about the “Proud Boys”, Trump said” “Stand down, stand by” essentially endorsing them. Alos, he misquoted me saying that I am against masks. He also said that I praised him for saving lives by shutting down China travel. Reporters (Chris Cuomo, Jim Sciutto, Maggie Fox, etc) continually texting me during the debate wanting me to counter what he said about me and masks PRESS: The Texas Tribune Festival – Fireside Chat with Lawrence Wright (The New Yorker); Interview with Wall Street Journal – Caitlin McCabe. September 30, 2020 – Global USA NEWS CLIPPING — WASHINGTON POST — CONDENSED (2 SOURCE PAGES) “Addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on COVID-19 led by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Rep Escobar. Addressed State, local and Tribal Officials on COVID-19 Presented plenary to American Academy of Pediatrics Addressed Quad Caucus together…” there was no shortage of surgical masks and that masks are effective at stopping the spread of the virus. “I have been on the airways, on the radio, on TV, begging people to wear masks,” Dr. Fauci said. “And I keep talking in the context of wear a mask, keep physical distance, avoid crowds, wash your hands and do things more outdoors versus indoors.” — Simon Romero October 1, 2020 Hope Hicks is infected!!! PRESS: The National Press Club – NFID – Influenza Press Conference; The Tight Rope with Tricia Rose and Cornell West Journalist Michael Specter examines Fauci’s career and the challenges of facing COVID-19 with Trump’s White House in his new audiobook “Fauci,” the first biography to be published on the doctor. Specter writes that he first met Fauci in 1986. Even then, Fauci was a mainstay in both the political and medical communities. He has since served with every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan. October 2, 2020 – Global – 34,200,000/1,000,000; USA – 7,300,000/207,300 POTUS is infected with SARS-CoV-2!!!! I was very close to VP on Tuesday, Sept. 29. VP is negative today. Melania also positive. Media frenzy! Much discussion that WH knew that Hope was positive BEFORE the POTUS went on a trip and could possibly have exposed others. I just got tested via NIH today – negative. POTUS admitted to Walter Reed with increasing sxs. Received Regeneron monoclonal antibody. I had called Sean Conley and told him that this is what I would do. He agreed. Later in day received Remdesivir. I reached out again to Sean Conley to help again. No response. WH really shutting down comms with outside world. Kellyanne Conway, RNC Chair and two senators ( Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina and Senator Mike Lee), Republican of Utah) infected plus Bill Stepien (Trump’s Campaign manager); all were at the Rose Garden ceremony for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It appears that this ceremony was a super-spreading event since all infected people were there and the timing is perfect Katie Miller called me last night and this AM. Stephen Miller has sxs – is getting tested now at Walter Reed – he is negative! I told her to stay physically separate from Steven even if he tests negative. PRESS: Getting scores of calls from press and request to appear on every show. White House has indicated no press of any type until further notice. They do not want me or other government docs out there until further notice. Press (CNN) asking on air why Fauci and other TF members are not be able to speak. October 3, 2020 - Global – 34,500,000/1,000,000; USA – 7,300,000/208,100 Sean Conley and the WR team are giving mixed messages about how well or not the POTUS is doing. Conley saying he is doing fine. Others saying his vital signs are troublesome, he is on oxygen and coughing with fever. His condition could be deteriorating. PRESS: In Science magazine: Why Anthony Fauci is happy being the "skunk" on the Coronavirus Task Force By Jon Cohen , 1:05 PM October 4, 2020 – Global USA Still confusion about condition of POTUS. He came on TV last night wearing a blue suit with no tie saying that he felt fine and will be in hospital for a few days Bob Grady texted me last night and said he talked with Chris Christie (he is infected and in the hospital) and Chris would like to speak with me. Gave me his cell phone. I spoke with Christie. He was extremely grateful and “honored” that I called. He is doing fairly well. Had some fever and aches. His O2 sat off oxygen is 96-98. He is asthmatic and obese and realizes his risks and so he has already started Remdesivir and will start today at 12:00 noon the Lilly mAb. Mark Meadows called my cell while I was walking on the C & O Canal at around 8:30 AM to ask my advice about when the POTUS could go out publicly again. I mentioned that the CDC guidelines say 10 days from the onset of sxs. His sxs started Thrusday, Oct. 1 and so 10 days would be Saturday, Oct.10. Mark told me that on Friday his temp was 103 and his O2 sat was in the 80s. That triggered the Remdesivir. Today (Sunday) he is up and about in his room and is afebrile. O2 sat is improved and he feels much better. I told Mark to send the POTUS my best wishes. Had conversation with Katie Miller who is in hotel separated from Stephen since he was exposed strongly. I spoke with Stephen yesterday and told him that he should stay away from Katie until he has multiple negative PCRs. Today was his 4th negative and so I told Katie that she can leave the hotel and go home to Stephen. Provided that they wear masks. At least seven people besides the president who were there (the Amy Coney Barret event in the Rose Garden) have tested positive in recent days: first lady Melania Trump, former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R), University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and an unnamed journalist. Contacted by Sean Conley. Got together by conference call with Walter Reed medical team plus Cliff Lane plus Bob Redfield to discuss course of POTUS infection. Also, discussed possibility of getting infected high level officials out in public with some sort of “filtering device” while they are still infected as opposed to waiting 10 days. I told them that this would create a firestorm of pushback from the press since it would be breaking all the CDC guidelines. I suggested that they might use the 2 negative PCRs over 24 hours as opposed to the 10 day from onset of sxs rule. Sean said that they gave the POTUS dexamethasone since his O2 level dropped into the 80s, but he bounced back quickly with O2 administration. They started dex just as a precaution. White House comms (including Alyssa) as well as Sean giving confusing messages to the public about the POTUS health. Mark Meadows was honest and said that his situation was precarious requiring O2 on Friday night and the POTUS got angry with Mark sine he did not show a happy face. Sean was obviously intimidated by POTUS and so he sugar-coated the briefing. Bottom line is that POTUS is doing rather well. He had a limo drive him up and down Rockville Pike waving to the crowds of supporters. He wore a cloth mask instead of a N95 and press criticized him for endangering the Secret Service who were in the car. October 5, 2020 – Global – 35,100,000/1,000,000; USA – 7,400,000/210,000 1. The overall picture continues to deteriorate raising concerns across the United States (beyond the improvements across the South that are currently holding) the absolute numbers and the concerning trendlines across the upper North West and Mid West and now the North East – although some of these changes are subtle when you triangulate them and take into account the changing weather conditions in these areas small clusters can rapidly and silently spread to large outbreaks – this spread is preventable with aggressive mitigation : this is not about shutting down but using the clear evidence based mitigation that has worked – attached both states of concern and the stable southern state 2. The silent spread among the asymptomatic individuals leads to silent community spread that then spreads to the more cautious group including the vulnerable members of households : the way to prevent this is to ensure personal mitigation through masks, physical distancing and personal hygiene combine with early identification of community spread and protecting the vulnerable individuals in their household. 3. These data driven laser focused interventions will be essential as we move into the fall : there needs to be a clear recognition of in household, small gatherings among neighbors and family events are active spreading events when there is even one asymptomatic COVID positive individual – although outdoors are safer both the level of the viral load and closeness of contact can lead to increasing spread 4. The overarching concern relates to the balance of personal mitigation behaviors and the weather driving more activities indoors with the lower humidity increasing the K value (dispersion factor) with lower humidity the droplets partially evaporate allowing for longer suspension in the air and together – poor personal mitigation and cooling weather with heating will increase the R value and the clear evidence of aerosol contribution 5. Any baseline immunity in the population (ranging from <1-10%) in all states except LA, NY, NJ (where mortality was 3-4X all other states) can be offset and overcome by this weather element and increased indoor activities – this is the concern about continued spread in states where the weather is changing (cooling) and the need for immediate mitigation actions by the leadership and the public collectively : conversely the improved weather across the south with movement outdoors from air conditioning will lower both R1 and decrease dispersion (K) – 6. There also needs to be careful proactive attention to the NE – cases rising in NYC and Boston 7. Will be key to increase testing in the communities and states where test positivity is rising to prevent further community spread to prevent increases in hospitalizations and fatalities 8. This first several tranches of BINAX to states should be prioritized to states with high community spread White House people continue to get infected – latest is Kayleigh McEnany POTUS called me up from his hospital room at Walter Reed. 1:08 PM. He rambled on about the suite he was in and how expensive it was to build it. Says it is better than the White House. Asked me if I have ever been there. I told him about the time I went there to help in the treatment of President Nixon’s pneumonia. He then commented on my voice and my successful vocal cord surgery. He then described his therapies (Remdesivir, mAB (Regeneron) and Dexamethasone). He praised Len Schleifer and now the real reason he called. He said that he was very sick when he came into the hospital and “felt like fucking shit”, However, a few hours after receiving the Regeneron mAB, he felt better than he has felt in years (I believe that DEX is contributing to this as well as to his obvious hyperkinetic state). Bottom line is that he wants me to get the Regeneron mAb out as an EUA. I explained that the mAb was in clinical trials. He said the most important clinical trial has been done – i.e. on him the POTUS. That is all we need to know. He wants me to get back to him and get it out to millions of people. He said it was not about the election, it was about saving lives. I told him that it was an FDA regulatory issue. He then said that they would listen to me. He said he was aware of the Lilly mAB,but thinkgs that Regeneron is better (Len probably told him so). POTUS then said get both Reg and Lilly an EUA. We are obviously going to have a problem since there is not enough data for an EUA. Mark Meadows called me about what the appropriate PPE would be for others to wear around the POTUS when the POTUS returns (today) to the WH. Also, he wanted my opinion of what PPE the Senators who are infected or who will be infected should wear when they vote for ACA and Supreme Court justice confirmation. PRESS: CNN New Day – discussion of my Sammie Award – Federal Employee of the Year; WTOP Radio; Times Radio UK; CNN with Chris Cuomo; The New Yorker Festival – Audio – Biography – “Fauci” on YouTube livestream with Michael Specter; The Sammies presentation livestream. Extraordinary comments by a large number of celebrities: https://www.facebook.com/rpublicservice/videos/351805602538815/ October 6, 2020 – Global - 35,300,000/1,000,000; USA – 7,400,000/210,000 QUITE A DAY!! Fauci gets his own action figure BY JUDY KURTZ - 10/06/20 12:23 PM EDT 297 • Fireside Chat for Cornell (Ithaca) Homecoming – Kate Snow • Holy Cross fireside chat • Fireside chat with American University Political Union with Sylvia Burwell Dennis Quaid called to thank me for doing the podcast with him. Had long conversation by phone with Chris Christie who is in Morristown Hospital. I am advising Gov. Christie on his medical course. He has received Remdesivir and is doing fine. His asthma is acting up, but his O2 is 97-98%. Some docs are recommending that he go home since he is doing well. I told him that since he is only 4-5 days into his illness and people crash on day 5 to 8, he should stay in hospital instead of going to his beach home. He should make surethat he walks around and treats the hospital like a hotel and not stay in bed to avoid thromboembolic phenomenon. He is really pissed at Trump for his reckless behavior and his disregard for infecting others. Christie is sure that Trump infected him since Christie helped prepare Trump for the Presidential debates. Christie want to be the voice opposite to Trump in saying that COVID-19 is serious and we should not brag about not dying from it, and we should not trivialize it or brag aboutndefeating it since it is still killing 210,00 people in the USA. He related that Trump told him that he was surprised that “strong men like you and me got infected”. Christie told him that it has nothing to do with how strong one is. The virus can infect anyone. Stephen Miller is infected! Very strange. Stephen was exposed to POTUS, Hope, others and tested negative by Abbot now, antigen tests and 2 PCR tests over the past 6 days. I had told him that he could re-unite with Katie who is in a hotel. He did. Now he is positive. In retrospect, he was mildly symptomatic for the entire 6 days, but since he tested negative, he felt that he was not infected. Now we know that he was probably infected but his level of virus was so low that it was not detected (tells you something about the tests). Spoke multiple times to Katie who is on way to her parents in Florida. Spoke to her at Houston airport and after she landed. Told her to get tested again (she was negative today by the Abbott test). I warned her that in this political scene, the Dems will ask her if she was near the VP (which she was) and whether she is sure that she in not infected from Stephen. They will not believe her unless she gets a PCR test. Otherwise they will say that VP may be a contact who needs to be sidelined for 10 days. I strongly advised her to get a PCR test tomorrow. The VP debate is tomorrow. Scott Atlas crossed a line today. See e-mail below: Marc: I am sorry to bother you with this as we approach the important VP debate, but this needs attention. You had mentioned to me about trying to reconcile differences between the other doctors on the Task Force and Dr. Atlas and I told you that I certainly am amenable to doing so. Below is a note that a reporter (Ashley Collman) sent to me asking for my response to an interview that she had with Dr. Atlas that they are planning on publishing. I am not planning to respond publicly since that would be beneath my dignity. However, a line has been crossed here am I strongly suggest that Dr. Atlas be removed from the Task Force and quite frankly from the White House itself. Not withstanding his outrageous comments about me, which are factually incorrect (I never said that “everyone should wear goggles” and I never “ridiculed” Sen. Paul and I, by the way, have actually written the book on natural immunity), what he has been preaching about public health measures has put the POTUS and the White House staff at risk, resulting in the infection of our President and several White House staff and other government officials. As I mentioned, I am not going to address this publicly, but it must be addressed internally. Thank you for listening. Best regards, Tony Anthony S. Fauci, MD Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Building 31, Room 7A-03 31 Center Drive, MSC 2520 National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD 20892-2520 Phone: (301) 496-2263 FAX: (301) 496-4409 E-mail: afauci@niaid.nih.gov The information in this e-mail and any of its attachments is confidential and may contain sensitive information. It should not be used by anyone who is not the original intended recipient. If you have received this e-mail in error please inform the sender and delete it from your mailbox or any other storage devices. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) shall not accept liability for any statements made that are the sender's own and not expressly made on behalf of the NIAID by one of its representatives. From: Ashley Collman <acollman@businessinsider.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2020 9:20 AM To: Conrad, Patricia (NIH/NIAID) [E] <conradpa@niaid.nih.gov> Subject: Business Insider reporter - request for comment Hi Patricia, My name is Ashley Collman and I'm a reporter for Business Insider. My colleague Hilary said I should contact you if I'm trying to offer Dr. Fauci the opportunity to comment on a story. I spoke to Dr. Scott Atlas yesterday, who had some things to say about Fauci. Atlas slammed Fauci for using "media contacts to make public criticisms of other people out of insecurity." He also criticized Fauci for saying "everyone should wear goggles" and for "ridiculing" Sen. Rand Paul for suggesting that some people have a natural immunity to the virus. "To ridicule that statement shows a complete lack of understanding and a lack of the current scientific research," Atlas said. He added: "I think a lot of the criticism stems from people who are either politically motivated or are interested in maintaining their own stature in the public eye." Let me know if Fauci would like to say anything in response to these comments from Atlas. Best, Ashley Collman Senior News Reporter Alyssa Farah texted me (at 3:39 PM) and said that Meadows will now prevent Atlas from doing any media; however, Atlas appeared on Laura Ingraham (FOX) with misleading statements that Influenza was more dangerous for young people than COVID-19. What a stupid statement! And so, it is OK to have the elderly and the 80 million people in USA with underlying conditions get seriously ill from COVID just because young people do well (mostly). Ridiculous. Deb Birx went in to see Meadows and apparently Meadows said he will fix the problem with Atlas, but it may take 48 hours. We shall see. PRESS: Podcast with ESPN 30 on 30 – “Day in the Life of Tony Fauci on March 11, 2020; October 7, 2020 – Global USA Alex Azar met yesterday with Atlas and his 3 stooges – Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford), Sunetra Gupta (Oxford) and Martin Kulldorff’s (Harvard). Seems that he is buying into Atlas VP debate tonight between Pence and Harris. Much more civil than the POTUS debates. Pence did not directly answer several questions using the technique that I have seen him use of avoiding answering the questions and talking about something else in response to the question. My name was mentioned multiple times during the debate. Harris said she would take an OVID-19 vaccine if I said so, but not if Trump said so. Also, Pence mentioned my name saying that I said that Trump saved many lives by shutting down travel from China. October 8, 2020 – Global 36,000,000/1,000,000; USA – 7,500,000/211,100 Below is really October 8, not October 6 Much discussion centered around the upcoming 2nd POTUS debate. Issue is whether Trump (recently infected) can safely do it in person. The Commission wants to do it virtually; however, Trump says he will not debate except in person. Mark meadows has called me twice for advice about the CDC guidelines of when a person post-infection can safely go out. The guidelines say 10 days from onset of sxs and 2 PCR tests (24 hours apart) that are negative. His last PCR had a CT of 28.9. It needs to be 35 or greater to be considered negative. More to come. Great podcast with Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Now total 34 people infected in the White House super-spreader event in the Rose Garden. Also, Kellyanne and Chris Christie helped him prepare for the debate PRESS: Print interview with Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper; Italy TV Sky TG24; MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell; Podcast with Rashida Jones and Bill Gates; Radio ONE NYC; PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff; Memphis Commercial Appeal: Dr. Anthony Fauci: a trusted and dependable voice during COVID-19 | Opinion With so much false information about the coronavirus being thrown at us, Fauci has evolved as a voice we can trust. He speaks truth, gives us the facts, and pulls no punches. Lynn Norment Columnist October 9, 2020 – Global USA We are clearly seeing resurgences in various parts of USA , esp. the upper midwest and the Northwest (see below). This is exactly what we (Deb and I) predicted would happen if young people did not abide by public health recommendations (masks, crowds, etc). It also validates my insisting to the VP that although I did not like being the “skunk at the picnic”, the upticks in case positivity clearly predicted the increase incases → hospitalizations → deaths. Also, shows that Atlas and his 3 stooges are completely incorrect. Gov. Cuomo called me up. Deb wanted me to speak with him about the surge in NYC since she knows that we are friends. I asked his brother Chris to have him call me. Andrew feels that the NYC surge is driven almost exclusively by the Hasidic Jews who feel that they have “herd immunity”. Obviously they do not (see Atlas). In the middle of the conversation, the POTUS calls me (see below) POTUS called me this AM at 9:10 AM. He is still very hyper and is saying that the Regeneron product “cured” him. He had with him on speaker phone Sean Conley and the entire Walter Reed team. He had them say that the drop in viral titer from 10 to the 8 to 10 to the 3 was the fastest they have ever seen. They obviously do not have that much experience. When I asked what the CT was, they said it was 33, which means he still has replication virus in his nasopharynx. Could be that Dex is slowing the clearance of virus. He wants me to help get REG mAB an EUA to save hundreds of thousands of lives. He is clearly hyper. He told the crew that I was the best persuader in the world. He used to think that he was, but he now feels that he is 2nd. Weird conversation; friendly, but weird. PRESS: AP video interview with Kelly Daschle; CBS Radio interview; Irish Newspaper – Sunday Indepemdent; October 10, 2020 – Multiple calls with Katie Miller, Stephen Mill and Mark Meadows. Big issues is when to get the POTUs back into the public (campaign rallies). Mark Meadows called me about this X2 today. The POTUS has been 10 day since onset of sxs, which is the CDC guideline for being able to return to public. However, his CT was less than 35. Today it is 34.6, but other viral parameters for replication are showing no replication. I convinced Mark to not allow the POTUS to go to Florida today (Saturday) but to wait until Monday and do a Ehite House balcony show today. Also, Stephen Miller is chomping at the bit to get out in public since the campaign is short-handed with so many people infected. Stephen has crazy numbers. CT was 27.8 yesterday and 16 today!. Looks like a lab error. Will check again tomorrow GOP campaign put out an ad misleading) having me say that the POTUS did everything possible. The press are calling out the GOP since they know that this is totally out of context. I called Stephen Miller and asked him to look into this. PRESS: Continue to do taping for the NAT/GEO documentary as well as the 60 Minutes Special that will come up next week. Crazy situation with Alyssa Farah and Jon Karl who rally wants me on “This Week” tomorrow (Sunday). First she promised him that there wa a 99.5% chance that he could have me. She said this on Wednesday. Jon texted her every day for confirmation and she just ignored his texts until it was too late (Saturday afternoon). Totally incompetent and disrespectful to Jon and ABC, but not atypical for them (WH Comms) October 11, 2020 (Sunday) See above re: Jon Karl. They are completely blocking me for Sunday shows. Also, big stink about the POTUS hiding data regarding how infective he might be (see above) Multiple conversation with Sean Conley, docs at Walter Reed and me. Also, Savannah Guthrie representing NBC wants assurances that it is safe for the audience that the POTUS does a Town Hall on Thursday (Oct.14). Mark wants us at NIH to repeat the PCR and CT values to get an independent voice here since the press does not trust Sean Conley or the Walter Reed people since they believe that these folks are afraid of the Commander-in-Chief. However, Mark does not want to admit that we need to go to NIH and so he wants NIH to do the PCR but have me not say that it was done at NIH, but only say that I will vouch for the results. Really ridiculous. Cliff will do the swab on Thursday and run it at NIH. I needed to respond to the misrepresentation of my support forTrump by the GOP campaign and so when Kaitlan Collins contacted me about it, I issued a statement that she tweeted: "In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate. The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials." It went totally viral on twitter and several networks and cable reported it. The GOP campaign hit back by giving other quotes from me saying that I did indeed support what the POTUS was doing. However, they left out all f my criticisms, and besides in none of those quotes did I endorse the POTUS. Now the GOP campaign is tweeting everything that I ever said positive about our effort trying to call me a liar about denying that I am favoring Trump. This is turning into an ongoing war between me and the GOP campaign. Nate Silver tweeted that the GOP campaign is really stupid to pick a fight with Tony Fauci just a couple of weeks before the election. Jon Karl called out Alyssa Farah on “This Week” saying that she would not let me on the show. He then asked for any medical or TF person including Redfield, Birx, Hahn, Giroir, or even Pence. She ignored that and tweeted that Karl did not ask for anyone else but me. Karl got furious and tweeted his tweet to her showing her up to be a liar. She responded and said she must have “missed the text”. PRESS: Opinions Distinguished person of the week: Fauci calls out Trump’s recklessness Opinion by Jennifer Rubin Columnist at 7:45 a.m. EDT October 12, 2020 Global – 37,400,000/1,100,000; USA – 7,700,000/214,100 Continued confusion about whether I am allowed on shows. Jake Tapper was told by Alyssa that it is OK to put me on his show. When Patty and CNN tried to make the arrangements, WH comms said that they did not know anything about this. Jon Karl and Wolf Blitzer also trying in vain to get me on. All day and evening press dominated by the conflict between me and the GOP Campaign regarding their campaign ad featuring me. The press are making Trump look very bad saying that trump is not running against Biden, he is running against Tony Fauci. The Epi outbreak situation is deteriorating (See below) PRESS: CNN Jake Tapper – “The Lead”; CNBC – Shepherd Smith; complete filming for CBS “60 Minutes” for next week with Jon LaPook; October 13, 2020 Global USA Increases in cases continue (see map below) Mark Meadows has asked me to certify that POTUS is not transmittable for SARS-CoV-2. This relates to the fact that NBC (Savannah Guthrie) execs do not want to host the Town Hall with Savannah moderating on Thursday (10/15/2020) unless they are sure that POTUS will not infect Savannah or anyone else connected with the Town Hall. I offered to have a PCR done here at NIH and to go over all the data with Cliff and certify if appropriate. Cliff went to WH and Sean Conley did nasal swab on POTUS and Cliff brough it back to NIH. Result was CT of 34.3. We then went over all his data including multiple negative cultures and multiple negative antigen tests (see attached document) and clinical course of >10 following onset of sxs and we determined that he was not infectious. I related this to Savannah by phone at 10:00 PM tonight Summary of findings[3].pdf PRESS: Good Day NY TV with Rosanna Scotto; Public Radio – “The World” October 14, 2020 – Globus USA Very concerned about the uptick of cases throughout the country in ~30+ states, which is a good predictor of surges. Important as we enter Fall and Winter Season. Also, baseline infections are ~40,000 to 50,000/day. A FEW DAYS AGO, Julia Roberts sent me beautiful flower arrangement. I emailed her my thanks. Scott Atlas still causing problems with his “herd immunity” issue. Continued press coverage of tension between me and POTUS “Barrington Declaration” – Misleading people into thinking that it only measn do not close down country and just protect the vulnerable, when in fact is means go for herd immunity, which will kill many, many people. Ha long talk tonight with Jared Kushner asking his help in getting rid of Scott Atlas. Much activity in the community asking Deb and I to threaten to resign if the White House does not get rid of Atlas. PRESS: Major article in Washington Post by Yakamura, Dawsey and Yasmeen Abutaleb discussing tension and “feud” between POTUS and me; CBS.com live stream with Norah O’Donnell; CBS Evening News; WABC Radio Interview – Conversations in Healthcare; Open discussion of conflict with WH: Trump’s COVID Task Force Is Now Openly Rebelling Against Him From Fauci to Birx to Redfield, the president’s top health officials appear to be at their wits’ end. Erin Banco Asawin Suebsaeng Sam Stein October 15, 2020 Global USA As the election nears, the cases increase and surges are inevitable as we enter cooler weather. Trump is on the campaign trail spewing nonsense. He is really out of control. A true embarrassment. I did Face Time and some screen shots with a young boy at Children’s National Medical Center who has recurrent brain tumor. He is from Hollywood, FL. His name is Benjamin. Chris Christie’s physician called me to ask advice on getting Gov. Christie back in circulation following COVID-19. He still is PCR positive, has been 13 days since onset of sxs. Do not yet know CT level. I told them to get it and get back to me. Seems like the POTUS is desperately attacking me. This from the New York Post: Here's the Trump quote: "Tony Fauci, he's a nice guy. He said this is not a threat. This is not a problem. Don't worry about this... he said do not wear a mask. Do not wear a mask under any circumstances. Don't wear a mask — don't, don't, don't, right? So we don't wear a mask. Then they say, oh wear a mask. I never saw, did you ever see any conflicts? but he's a nice guy so I keep him around, right? We'll keep him around. "He is a Democrat. everybody knows that. He's Cuomo's friend. Cuomo did the worst job of any governor in the United States. Almost 40,000 people died more, and 11,000 at least — and you know I gave him this big convention center, 2,800 beds, he didn't use it. I gave him a ship. I gave him the great hospital ship meant for wars... it's incredible, they didn't use it. Instead they sent sick people back into nursing homes, right? It's a disgrace." -- Steven Nelson New York Post Signal/cell: 202-805-0625 When the POTUS said this to the crowd in North Carolina, as he mentioned my name, the crowd booed and he encouraged this. On the evening cable shows CNN Anderson Cooper said this was a terribly childish thing to do to a career public servant like me. PRESS: Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos (ABC) – I blew away the Great Barrington Declaration; Yahoo Finance Interview; PBS Firing Line with Margaret Hoover. October 16, 2020 – Global USA Surges continue. See Birx slides below Cases continue to climb: October 17, 2020 (Saturday) Got call at 5:53 AM from Deb Birx who reported to me about yesterday’s activities at the WH. Atlas did not come to White House. However, at the “huddle” in the AM he tried to undermine everything that Deb and I have been saying about how to contain the surges. He explicitly wants to never do contact tracing and never isolate any person who is infected. He feels that this constitutes a “lockdown’ and feels that the POTUS does not want to lock down. We (Deb and I) have repetitively said that we do not want to lock down. Atlas has convinced the entire White House. My conversation with Jared a couple of days ago obviously did not convince him since he told Deb yesterday that the POTUS likes differences of opinion and so we should just work it out. THIS IS VERY REMINISCENT OF AIDS DENIALISM WITH THABO MBEKI when it went beyond differences of opinion and >300,000 South Africans died without ART because he believed from Duesberg et al that HIV did not cause AIDS Cases continue to surge (see graph below). Could possibly start to overwhelm hospitals in some more rural areas. October 18, 2020 – Global – 39,600,000/1,100,000; USA – 8,100,000/218,500 Surge continues: Baby Blues by Jerry Scott and Rick Kirkman Hilarious song about mask wearing: https://bit.ly/37jp8fs Not allowed on any shows. Meet the Press and Face the Nation asked for me. WH gave Alex Azar to Meet the Press PRESS: (Sunday) –CBS “60 Minutes” with Jon LaPook October 19, 2020 – Global USA Things getting worse and worse, and still the White House espouses the “herd immunity” nonsense from Scott Atlas. I am ashamed of Alex Azar for embracing this. See PRESS below. Trump is on tear trashing me saying that I am a “disaster”, going on about my throwing arm at the Nats opener, tweeting constantly about me, saying if he had listened to me 500K people would be dead by now. Calling the Task Force people “idiots” He is really sounding totally crazy. He must have driven over the edge by the incredibly well-received profile of me last night on CBS “60 Minutes” The response of my supporters with e-mails, texts, and tweets has been overwhelming. Some examples of hundreds of e-mails and texts: Text from Joan Baez – “I hope you’re celebrating. It’s an honor to be attacked by that miserable fuck”. Text from Hilary Rosen – “14 more days. Hang in there. We need you. That fuckhead isn’t fit to tie your shoes. Xo Hilary” CNN jumped all over zTrump for doing this. PRESS: CBS/KNX Radio – Los Angeles; Washington Post article describing situation on the TF Trump’s den of dissent: Inside the White House task force as coronavirus surges By Yasmeen Abutaleb, Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Robert Costa at 6:00 a.m. EDT Trump to campaign staff: "Fauci is a disaster" From CNN's Kaitlan Collins https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump October 20, 2020 – Global - 40,300,000/1,100,000; USA – 8,200,000/220,000 Had call with “Miami Mayors again (Deb and I). They are starting to see upticks in test positivity in certain groups (younger people – 30-40 y.o.), but not the general population since they are decreasing the number of tests; however, it might not be totally reflective of what is going on. Gov. DeSantis is legally preventing the Mayors from doing what needs to be done. They cannot close bars or restaurants. DeSantis is preventing them from doing what needs to be done. Mayors are frustrated. Phone call with Governor Inslee (D-WA). He wants my help in doing a PSA or an interview to encourage the people of Washington state to abide by public health guidelines since they are experiencing a slight surge in cases when they were previously doing very well. NEWS CLIPPING — WASHINGTON POST — CONDENSED (1 SOURCE PAGE) “PRESS: Front page articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times on Trump attacking me. See NY Times below by Stolberg, Haberman and Weiland; CBS Radio NYC Trump Calls Fauci ‘a Disaster’ and…” Fauci reportedly quotes ‘The Godfather’ in response to Trump criticisms By Yaron Steinbuch October 20, 2020 | 7:00am | Updated October 21, 2020 Global – 40,500,000/1,100,000; USA – 8,200,000/220,400 Se. Patrick Leahy (D-VY) called me to encourage me in light of the POTUS attacks on me. His mother’s side of the family is Italian and he said to me “Coraggio” or courage, which his grandmother used to tell him when he was a prosecutor in Vermont. PRESS: Article in Washington Post by Molly Roberts – “Why Fauci Won’t Quit”; Article and cover in Washingtonian magazine: Washington’s Very Top Top Doctor Each November, Washingtonian honors the best physicians in our region. This year, Anthony Fauci deserves special recognition. Written by Sherri Dalphonse | Published on October 20, 2020 October 22, 2020 – Global – 41,100,000/1,100,000; USA – 8,300,000/221,400 Surging continues as does hospitalizations and soon deaths. Atlas continues to spew forth nonsense about letting children and young people get infected and just protect the vulnerable. How do you protect the vulnerable not in nursing homes, i.e. in the community. He feels that wearing masks are worthless and contact tracing and isolation is actually locking down. The WH is letting him do this. Borders on criminal. Got call from Mark Meadows from Nashville with the last Presidential debate takes place. Mark said that they want to put up a plexiglass plate between Trump and Biden and Trump feels that this is a distraction. Mark called me to ask my opinion and I confirmed that it is unnecessary. The POTUS is not infected nor is Biden. Mark thanked me and a few minutes later Dr. Kens Sands (Physician for the debate) called me at Mark’s suggestion to discuss the details of our data that the POTUS is no longer transmissible. I gave him eth CT number of 34.3 CT and the negative antigen tests and cultures. He was satisfied. Amazing → POTUS days I am an “idiot” and a “Disaster” and then counts on me to verify about his health. October 23, 2020 Global – 41,600,000/1,100,000; USA – 8,400,000/222,400 Last night was final Presidential Debate. POTUS still insisting that we are turning the corner and all parameters are down. This is completely untrue as per the summary below from Deb Birx. Also, after the moderator brought up the fact that POTUS called me and others “idiots” he continues to say that I am a nice guy but have been wrong many times. He brings up the “incomplete” quote where I say that: “…..at this time, we do not need to do anything different”, yet he leaves out the second part of the sentence: “……however, it really is an evolving situation, and we have to be prepared for the worst”. This was a quote from me on CNN on January 20, 2020. On Jan. 21, the 1st travel-related case was detected in the USA. On Jan. 24 the 2nd travel-related case was detected and on Jan. 30 the 1st person-to-person spread of SARS-C0V-2 was confirmed in the USA. Therefore, I was warning that we needed to be prepared for the worst even before the 1st case was detected in the USA. Also, he said again that I am a Democrat and brings up my early (and very brief) statement on masks. Fact checkers showed he lied dozens and dozens of times during the debate. • Did Fireside Chat with the Aspen Group - Sibelius, Thompson. Very well received. Had dinner at my home with Jake and Jennifer Tapper. Relaxed, good time. Jake clearly believes that Trump is totally nuts. Hit 83,000 new cases today. The single day record since the beginning of the outbreak: Surge continues: PRESS: MSNBC – Chuck Todd – Meet the Press Daily; BBC TV Andrew Marr Show; CNN with Erin Burnett October 24, 2020 Global – 42,100,000/1,100,000; USA – 8,500,000/223,400 Much discussion in the press that the outbreak is out of control as we enter the cooler months. POTUS keeps saying that we are “turning the corner” and this will be under control very soon. Press pitting this against what I and other credible scientists are saying. Adam Silver, Commissioner of NBA, wrote me a nice letter thanking me for helpingto make the NBA season successful and safe October 25, 2020 – Global – 42,500,000/1,100,000; USA – 8,600,000/224,2200 The slide below demonstrates why it is important to test both symptomatic ad asymptomatic people. WH (with pushing by Atlas) is saying you only show test symptomatic people, Colleges are good example See below: Marc Short tests positive for COVID-19. VP continues to campaign despite CDC guidelines about quarantine sine VPO is with Marc constantly. VP and WH saying that VP is “essential personnel” and so an continue his work. Other VP staff that are now infected include political advisor Marty Obst; his personal aide Zach Bauer, known as a “body man,” who accompanies him throughout his day; and two other staff members. Had conversation with Marc Shot by phone today. I reached out to him to offer any help or advice that he might require. He was very appreciative. Mark Meadows on TV with Jake Tapper on SOTI (CNN- Sunday) saying we cannot control the pandemic, but we will fight it with therapies and vaccines. This is the Scott Atlas approach. This is interpreted by many and played up by Biden that the administration has essentially “given up” on trying to control the pandemic and have admitted failure. Some buzz around my statement on CNN Erin Burnett that I would favor mask mandates if people do not voluntarily wear masks. I clarify with Sheryl Stolberg of New York Times that local (state, city, county) mandates (if any) are better than national mandate. Adam Silver (Commissioner of NBA) sent me a letter thanking me for helping to make the NBA season successful and safe: SKM_C754e2010251 5200.pdf October 26, 2020 Global – 43,000,000/1,200,000; USA – 8,600,000/224,600 Surging continues: POTUS insists on having large rallies 1 week before the election. Crowds are close together, many without masks. He is desperate and defiant. On Friday, October 23, the FDA’s FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) held a meeting chaired by Arnold Monto of Univ. of Michigan and also member Paul Offit (U Penn) to discuss the pros and cons of issuing an EUA after 50 events in a 150 event trial (such as with Moderna and Pfizer). Thankfully, they weighed heavily on keeping the trial going and not unblinding it after the first sign of efficacy, which would negate the further gathering of important data. This is exactly what we had hoped for. Much pressure from Trump and Meadows to get an answer quickly or at least promise that an answer will come quickly. With the VRBPAC recommendation, vaccine (if effective) would not begin to be distributed before January, and not November/December. Over the weekend Gil Omenn called me and said that he had a recent meeting with President Obama and the President did not want to contact me directly sine he felt that this might cause me difficulty with the Trump people. However, he wanted Gil to convey to me how proud he was of me for what I have been doing and standing for and he wanted to express to me how much he admired me. • Went to Clinical Center to visit a young woman (Leslie Adelman) who has Von Hipple-Lindau disease and had a hemangioblastoma in her cerebellum removed last week. Since she was in the hospital she asked her neurosurgeon Dr. Kareem Zaghloul if it were possible to meet me. I, of course, said yes and went to see her. Quite a time. Nurses and physicians all wanted pictures with me. Leslie was delighted. Made my day. Sign in Kensington: . Dr. Anthony Fauci PRESS: Yahoo Finance TV; October 27, 2020 – Global USA Surges continue: Great Great Fireside Chat with Sharon Lewin et al (Peter Doherty) at Melbourne, Australia. Sharon said that I am a “household name” in Australia. The Australians had zero new infections in the entire city of Melbourne yesterday proving that pure public health measures such a mandatory mask wearing ($1000.00 fine) and avoiding crowds actually works. Alyssa Farah and Roma Daravi (White House comms) are continuing to jerk me around regarding clearances for TV requests. I get 20 requests and they ignore them. We complain, and then Alyssa says that she has no problem with any of them. “Go ahead and work with Roma to schedule”. Roma gives us one or two and then we do not hear from them (ignore us) for another week. All the while they are approving Azar and other docs on the task force (Hahn, Redfield, Adams, etc.) Clearly, they do not want me on Major TV, but are afraid to admit it. This must be pointed out in the book! PRESS: WAMU podcast with Diane Rehm; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – Fireside Chat; Rolling Stone Interview with Jeff Goodell October 28, 2020 – Global USA Went on rounds today with a patient with COVID-19 in the SCSU. When I entered the SCSU nurses’ station, the group of 5 nurses screamed in delight that I had visited and we took a whole bunch of picture. Brett Rowland (security) was the photographer. White House still claiming that everything is under control and that all that matters is deaths. That is absurd. Deaths are in fact increasing; however, they are completely disregarding the morbidity associated with getting infected and not dying, which could be protracted. Here’s A Timeline Of President Donald Trump’s And Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Relationship. USA Today (10/28, Behrmann, Santucci, 10.31M) reports, “The relationship between President Donald Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, has publicly eroded as the coronavirus pandemic has raged through the United States, with the two officials often disagreeing on issues from what drugs to use and a vaccine timeline to something as simple as the fact that COVID-19 isn’t ‘going to disappear.’” According to the article, “over the course of the virus’ spread, Trump’s relationship with Fauci, who has worked under both Democratic and Republican administrations since 1984, has vacillated from support to disdain.” USA Today provides “a timeline of the pandemic, reports about their relationship, and public statements from the two men regarding the virus and each other.” PRESS: Marc Siegal “Doctor Radio” Sirius Radio; Interview with Joel Achenbach – Washington Post; JAMA Podcast with Howard Bauchner; BBC Radio; CNBC – Shepard Smith; Chicago Ideas with Brandis Friedman – Brad Keywell; October 29, 2020 – Global – 44,000,000/1,200,000; USA – 8,800,000/227,000 POTUS in complete denial that there is a raging pandemic and everything is spiking. He keeps insisting that we have “turned the corner” or “rounding the turn”. Some potentially nefarious stuff going on. The FDA career scientists are hesitant to grant EUAs to Lilly’s and Regeneron’s mAb based on the current data. Alex Azar is really pushing them and furious because he thinks FDA is “slowwalking” the process so as not to have it out before the election in 5 days. Clearly, Alex wants to please the POTUS so that they can say that they have a breakthrough (similar to Convalescent plasma nonsense) right before the election. Azar then asked NIH (Collins), CDC (Redfield) and ASPR (Kadlec) to weigh in since the legislation that established the EUA process (dating back to the Anthrax situation in 2001) requires the CDC, NIH, and ASPR Directors to weigh in on EUA decisions (even though they have not done so in the past). Cliff and I had long conversation with Francis on his way down to HHS to discuss with Azar. We encouraged Francis to support the career scientists at FDA since they do not want to rush this through. They need more time to gather important information since what they have now is rather weak. October 30, 2020 – Global – 44,600,000/1,200,000; USA -8,900,000/228,100 • Did Fireside chat with Silicon Valley leadership Group Annual Forum • Was on Governors call led by Azar. After call Gov. Greg Abbott called me to ask about availability of mAbs Kelly Ripa throws her support behind coronavirus task force leader Dr. Anthony Fauci by stepping out in a sweater bearing immunologist's name By David Lawrance and Christine Rendon For Dailymail.com Published: 23:12 EDT, 29 October 2020 | Updated: 23:12 EDT, 29 October 2020 Earlier this month she had her own brush with COVID-19, when her Live With Kelly And Ryan co-host Ryan Seacrest had to be tested for the virus. Following Ryan's thankfully negative result, Kelly Ripa gave a nod to one of the faces of the U.S. Government's coronavirus taskforce when she stepped out in New York City in a statement garment on Thursday. The TV personality, 50, donned a white sweater bearing the name 'FAUCI,' an apparent reference to the famed immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has become something of a folk hero in the midst of America's coronavirus pandemic. NEWS CLIPPING — WASHINGTON POST — CONDENSED (1 SOURCE PAGE) “PRESS: Familiar Fauci anecdotes, told with a Brooklyn accent Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been in the spotlight during the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump recently called him…” politics and public policy. She is the author of "Janesville: An American Story." at 8:00 a.m. EDT Months before travel was hobbled by coronavirus fears, I was returning home one evening from Raleigh-Durham International Airport when I noticed a familiar figure at the gate — slight, bespectacled, hair side-parted and gray. Anthony S. Fauci and I have spoken now and then over the years, and we began to chat. When it was time to board, it turned out our seats were adjacent. So, I was treated to vivid war stories about the arc of his medical and scientific work in infectious diseases, and about his interactions with a succession of presidents during the AIDS crisis. New York Times – 10/29/2020 – Thomas Kaplan: Mr. Biden has also signaled that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, will have a prominent role in a Biden administration. The Biden campaign has said Dr. Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “will have full access to the Oval Office and an uncensored platform to speak directly to the American people — whether delivering good news or bad.” — Thomas Kaplan and Abby Goodnough October 31, 2020 – Global – 45,400,000/1,200,000; USA – 9,020,000/229,100 Surging continues to accelerate 3 days before the election. Trump out on campaign trail with big crowds, many who do not wear masks. Almost at the 100,000 per day level that I predicted at the Senate Hearing a few months ago: Tonight, I virtually received the Leonardo da Vinci Award of the National Italian American Foundation at their Virtual Gala online from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. Hosted by Pat Harrison, Joe Piscopo and Maria Bartiromo. There was a wonderful series of testimonials to me from an amazing group of people: Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, Francis Ford Copolla, President George W. Bush, Bono, John Turturro, Neil Sedaka, Dion DiMucci wrote and sang a song to me, Maria Tomei (she also grew upon Bensonhurst and commented about that), Isabella Rossilini, Mike Piazza, among many others. Very moving and humbling PRESS: ONLINE version of Washington Post article came out this evening (se below). Firestorm started. Apparently, the Post called the White House to inform them of my “negative towards the WH” interview. Mark Meadows called Collins (supposedly he tried to contact me but told Francis I did not answer my phone. He likely called my office phone that I no longer answer). He yelled at Francis saying that he has not seen the article yet but he has heard that I solicited an interview with the Post and did so without clearance. Francis called me and ascertained that in fact they called me and I did get clearance. See below (Sunday). November 1, 2020 – Global – 45,900,000/1,200,000; USA – 9,110,000/230,000 Big ISSUE!! – Blockbuster situation in Washington Post in an interview that I gave on Friday evening to Josh Dawsey and Jasmeen Abutaleb. I spoke about the fact that cases were dramatically increasing throughout the country (see prior days above) and that we needed to do something different like doubling down on public health measures. I also strongly blasted Scott Atlas. In the article, much to my dismay, Dawsey (less than Abutaleb) wanted to keep the word “seriously in a passage that I thought was off the record, but he said that it was not (I am pissed at him). Here is the passage: Fauci said former vice president Joe Biden’s campaign “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective.” Trump, Fauci said, is “looking at it from a different perspective.” He said that perspective was “the economy and reopening the country.”. Also, in the article. Judd Deere blasted me saying I was being political: Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, offered blistering criticism of Fauci for his comments in a statement to The Washington Post on Saturday. Deere said Fauci “knows the risks [from the coronavirus] today are dramatically lower than they were only a few months ago.” “It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics,” Deere said. “As a member of the Task Force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he’s not done that, instead choosing to criticize the President in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the President’s opponent — exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp.” I thought that I was in big trouble. However, some interesting things happened. Alyssa Farah texted me at 7:00 AM on Sunday and said: I am so sorry that fool Scott Atlas keeps attacking you. I’m even more sorry I’m not in a better position of influence to see him out the door. I’m trying to make people see he’s a disaster. I immediately called her up and explained that I was not pitting my support for Biden over the POTUS. She understood perfectly and said she totally supported me and thanked me for what I do. Then, at 9:30 AM, the POTUS called me from Air Force One. We had a 15 minute conversation where he did his usual rambling. He started by saying that I really need to be positive. “Tony, I really like you, and you know that, but what the fuck are you doing? You constantly drop bombs on me. Everybody wants me to fire you, but I am not going to fire you, you have too illustrious a career, but you have to be positive. The country cannot stay locked down. (I never said that we should lock down). You have got to give them hope. I like you but so many people, not only in the White House, but throughout the country hate you because of what you are doing. I am going to win this fucking election by a landslide. Just watch. I always did things my way. And I always win, no matter what all these other fucking people think. And that fucker Biden. He is so fucking stupid. You are 10 times smarter than he is. I am going to kick his fucking ass in this election. I will win by a landslide. Just wait and see. I will win Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, all the key states. Just wait and see. The smallest crowd that I had was 25,000 people. Biden had 5 people blowing their fucking horns in their cars. Tony, you have to be positive. I do not want to keep you off TV, but when you are out there, you have to be positive. (I tried to interject some words that I am being positive by telling people what they need to do to avoid infection – he heard none of it and just kept talking over me. He did not seem hostile, but he was just rambling). Then when he was finished, he said: “OK, Tony, I will see you in a couple of days. Take care”. Although I do not think that I will be fired, I am not out of danger just yet. Another crazy thing. Scott Atlas did an interview from the White House with Russian Television blasting the response of the USA scientists (including me). CNN is jumping all over this. PRESS: ‘A whole lot of hurt’: Fauci warns of covid19 surge, offers blunt assessment of Trump’s response Josh Dawsey and Yasmeen Abutaleb at 7:00 p.m. EDT President Trump’s repeated assertions the United States is “rounding the turn” on the novel coronavirus have increasingly alarmed the government's top health experts, who say the country is heading into a long and potentially deadly winter with an unprepared government unwilling to make tough choices. CNN Blog: White House unleashes on Fauci after criticism of Atlas and Trump's pandemic response By Kelly Mena Cartoon pitting me against Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= oCS-1w-OdU

, 09:38 IST PRESS: Good historical documentation of the CDC screw-up with the COVID-19 test by David Wilman in the Washington Post - The CDC’s failed race against covid-19: A threat underestimated and a test overcomplicated The Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Ron Harris/AP) By David Willman at 8:00 a.m. EST Add to list December 27, 2020 – Global – 79,200,000/1,800,000; USA – 18,900,000/331,000 Deb’s note for the day: Hospitalizations had stablized and specific metros were significantly declining so we will be able to see a post-Holiday surge in cases and hospitalizations and predict depth of surge impact by 10 Jan. 1. Data will be unstable for the next 2 weeks and decreases cannot be interpreted with both Christmas and New Years but will be tracking new hospital admissions 2. 24 States did not report yesterday on critical pandemic parameters and will cause a surge in cases and fatalities due to this reporting issue in the next few days 3. Summarizing the current state of the pandemic : overall the USA is at a high plateau for cases and hospitalizations and due to lagging fatalities reporting in improving states we won't see the fatality plateau until the next 2 week s Some areas going done and others are still surging. Big question will be whether we will have a post-holiday (Christmas and New Year surge). Letter from VP Pence - December 18 Photo with VP Pence - December, 2 Raising concern about what Trump might do as a last-ditch effort to prevent Biden from assuming the Presidency. He is already calling for demonstrations in Washington at the time of the January 6 ratification of the electoral votes by the Congress. He could induce riots and then invoke martial law to “control” the riots. Also, he could not sign the Omnibus budget bill and cause a government shutdown that could interfere with the inauguration PRESS: CNN State of the Union with Dana Bash; The Guardian: Interview 'New disease, no treatment, no cure': how Anthony Fauci's fight against Aids prepared him for Covid-19 Benjamin Ryan December 28, 2020 – Global – 79,900,000/1,800,000; USA – 19,100,000/332,200 POTUS changed his mind and signed the Omnibus budget bill avoiding a closure of USG. Spoke with Deb. This AM (this is one of many early morning 6:00 AM calls that I have with her just to check in and schmooze about what is going on. She is concerned (probably correctly so) that the Biden people think that there is some COVID-19 response structure here and there is not. There is her and backup from CDC and she railed on about how bad the CDC is (I agree with her in part). She feels that they completely blew COVID-19 by acting like it was influenza and they plugged in the “syndromic” model where you follow and test only those who are symptomatic since it took them forever to admit that COVID-19 was spread symptomatically and was very much different from influenza. PRESS: Taped podcast with ABC Jonathan Karl for later viewing; December 29, 2020 – Global – 79,900,0900/1,800,000; USA – 19,200,000/334,000 NEWS CLIPPING — BLOOMBERG — CONDENSED (2 SOURCE PAGES) “1.Most concerning are where COVID admissions are rising now showing significant community spread just prior to the Holidays and could have the most significant post Holiday surge – this is TX, GA, SC, NC, WVA.…” % Mentioning Number of top 10 finish Bill Gates 1 21 LeBron James 1 1 Dalai Lama 1 11 Combined first and second mentions; rankings based on total number of responses GALLUP, DEC. 1-17, 2020 December 30, 2020 – Global USA General Gus Perna asked to speak with me this Am (7:30 AM) for advice and “comfort”. There has been criticism about the roll-out of vaccines. @0 million doses were promised by the end of December and we only have 11 million. Also, only 2-3 million have been administered (the latter is not his responsibility). He realizes that there is disappointment and wants advice. I told him that above all he needs to be transparent and honest and not try to coverup any deficiency. This is a big operation and he should expect bumps in the road. He bemoaned that on the battlefield when he was on the radio he could tell from the background sounds and the “vibes’ on the radio how the battle was going. With vaccines, even on conference calls, he really cannot get a good feel for what all the players are doing and how honest they are being. He does not trust Pfizer; he thinks that they keep moving the goal posts. He likes Moderna. He was very grateful for the call. Senator Marco Rubio is acting like a real asshole. He is publicly calling me a liar about my statement in the NY Times about my assessments for the percent vaccinations needed for herd immunity. I had said that I modified my assessment of 70 to 75% to be 70 to 85% because we really did not know the precise number and I wanted to encourage people to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. Actually, I made that change by extrapolating the measles situation where measles vaccine is 98% effective whereas SARS-CoV-2 is 94-95% effective. Measles begins to lose herd immunity at around 89-90% of population vaccinated and so I brought up the SARS-CoV-2 to 85% with the range being 70 to 85%. For that he called me a “liar” Big hypocrite as he continues to kiss Trump’s ass – the world’s biggest liar. “Sen. Marco Rubio: Dr. Fauci lied about coronavirus — I am appalled by his arrogance” Placing blind faith in unelected celebrity scientists has its limits, and we must not be afraid to call them out By Sen. Marco Rubio | Fox News Had 2nd conversation with Rochelle Walensky where I am advising her on her new position as CDC Director. I briefed her on the fact that as good as some of the CDC people are, as an institution they have hubris and are often incorrect. She needs to follow her good instincts and question what they are doing in a friendly, non-threatening manner. PRESS: WTOP Special Radio with J.J. Green; UK TimesRadio interview; C-SPAN TV interview with Gov. Newsom of California; MSNBC “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell December 31, 2020 – Global – 81,500,000/1,800,000; USA – 19,700,000/341,200 1. Most concerning are rising case counts during a dramatic decline in testing – CA, TX, FL and where COVID admissions are rising consistent with significant undetected community spread prior to the Holidays and potentially the most significant post Holiday surge – this is FL, TX, GA, SC, NC, WVA. 2. New admissions rising in OK, TX, AL, MS, GA, FL, NY, MA, WVA, KY High Plateau in CA, AZ, NM, AR, TN, MD, CT, NJ 3. States with the most hospital staff stress are those states in the dark red zone and still rising – CA, AZ, GA and those states in the red zone and still rising – OK, TX, MS, AL, SC, TN, DE, NY 4. The Coasts (80% of the population) are now driving the increasing cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Mackenzie Miller (Daughter of Katie and Stephen Miller) admitted couple days ago first to Georgetown Hospital and then transferred to Children’s National. Developed acute onset of unresponsiveness. Improved significantly on IV fluids and antibiotics and acyclovir. Baby (6 months old) exposed to grandmother who has cold sore and so HSV encephalitis suspected. MRI (brain), EEG, physical (some hyporeflexia) all OK. Have spoken with her ID physician Reinhard Wiedermann and will speak with neurologist Elizabeth Wells. Am on phone frequently with Katie and Stephen. PRESS: NBC Today Show with Craig Melvin; WBAL Baltimore Radio; MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell; January 1, 2021 – Global – 81,900,000/1,800,000; USA – 20,000,000/345,000 Records continue to be broken with 125,000 hospitalizations and >3000 deaths. GOP and Trump planning to challenge the January congressional certification of the electoral votes. Disgraceful assault on democracy. • Spoke with Mitt Romney this AM who ran by me an OpEd he wants to submit pointing out the lack of success and weaknesses of the vaccine rollout plan and suggestions of how to improve it. Clearly there is a problem (see below) Problem with vaccine rollout. Plan was to have 40 million doses delivered by December 31 with 20 million in the arms and 20 million in reserve. This far 14 million delivered and 2.7 million in the arms. Clearly, they need to catch up. There is no central “plan” similar to no plan for testing and no plan for PPE. 1. Most concerning are rising case counts during a dramatic decline in testing – CA, TX, FL and where COVID admissions are rising consistent with significant undetected community spread prior to the Holidays and potentially the most significant post Holiday surge – this is FL, TX, GA, SC, NC, WVA. 2. States with the most hospital staff stress are those states in the dark red zone and still rising – CA, AZ, GA and those states in the red zone and still rising – OK, TX, MS, AL, SC, TN, DE, NY 3. The Coasts (80% of the population) are now driving the increasing cases, hospitalizations and death January 2, 2021 – Global – 82,400,000/1,800,000; USA – 20,100,000/347,000 Deaths now averaging around 3000 per day. Hospitalizations continue to break records. Trump totally focused on disrupting the transfer of power and declaring the election invalid. Big day coming up on January 5 when the Congress certifies the Electoral Votes. January 3, 2021 – Global – 82,600,000/1,800,000; USA – 20,300,000/350,000 Data remains unstable but early signals are increasing test positivity (49) states and in some states rising cases – tracking closely. Concerned about upcoming post-holiday surge 1. Reporting remains unstable and will create this current valley and peak (slide ¾) due to reporting alone – watching slope of rise. 2. Testing is down 40% over the past 7 days creating a high admission rate/case across all age groups and any increase in cases concerning 3. 49 states have rising test positivity and 17 rising cases despite reporting issue – this normal precedes a significant surge is hospitalizations Total deaths have not reached 350,000!! Tweet from Trump: Got a call from Jeff Zients wanting to confirm the I still am in favor of Janet Woodcock for FDA Commissioner. He was getting some negative signals from some people that she was involved in the EUA for hydroxychloroquine. I explained to Jeff that this was really Mark Meadows pressuring Steve Hahn who caved in. PRESS: ABC “This Week” with Martha Raddatz; NBC “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd; January 4, 2021 – Global – 83,700,000/1,800,000; USA – 20,600,000/350,700 Expecting the post-holiday surge 1. I have included the European data in slides 3 and 4 – most of the European increases being driven by the UK 2. You can also see from slide 3 the rate of rise of our Fall/winter surge was more dramatic consistent with the USA having its own more infectious variant Things starting to move with my involvement with the Biden team. Biden is concerned about making sure that he reaches 100 million doses of vaccine in the 1st 100 days. We are meeting by zoom with him tomorrow and today and tomorrow we had/will have pre-brief meetings to discuss our plan – led by Jeff Zients. Present were Natalie Quillian, Vivek Murthy, Marcella Nunez-Smith, Rochelle Walensky, David Kessler, Asma Mirza, and Sonya Bernstein. Plan is to develop community vaccination centers, use mobile units to get to rural areas, etc. Nursing staff in the OR at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital all wearing Fauci caps. Email sent to me by Atul Gawande. PRESS: Did zoom interview with the Newsday Editorial Board; MSNBC “All In” with Chris Hayes January 5, 2021 – Global – 84,200,000/1,800,000 USA – 20,700,000/352,000 Deb’s notes: Made this shorter to make serious points. First and foremost our Fall surge slope is nearly identical to the UK slope suggesting we have had our own more transmissible strain since then and it was responsible for the Fall surge in the Northern Plain states. My concern then was this type of surge moving into the more populous states as it has now in CA and now Tx and the sunbelt is unstable as well as the midAtlantic and NorthEast. Viruses are always in search of escape mutants than are more transmissible yet preserving replication capacity. This is happening around the globe and the immunologic pressure on viruses drive this potential and we continue to increase the immunologic pressure through percent of population infected, use of plasma and monoclonal Ab and now immunization. Key to RNA viruses with this of high mutation potential is to rapidly immunize the population especially those most likely to have high replication potential – those over 65. We have to accelerate the immunization of those over 65 ASAP. We can’t hold back on the rest of Tier 1 awaiting 1a. We have been in 1a for a month without adequate progress. Deb Trump going completely crazy. Was recorded on an hour-long telephone call with Secretary of State of Georgia Brad Raffensperger to change the votes and asked for 11, 780 votes to be changed (he lost Georgia by 11,779). Clearly a criminal act of trying to influence an election. More cowardly GOPs are backing Trump in the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate (Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) • Big discussion and debate in the press about whether to give more single doses of vaccine and wait few months before the second dose. The UK is doing this with the AZ vaccine. There is no scientific data to justify this. They are doing it because they want to give more people first doses. Our problem is not more people than doses, it is that we are not injecting as many people (4 million) with the doses that we have (14 million). Much discussion in the press about this. • Had Zoom meeting with Biden and Harris. Meeting led by Jeff Zients. Present was Ron Klain, Natalie Quillian, Marcella Nunez-Smith, David Kessler, Vivek Murthy, Rochelle Walensky, Bechara Choucair. Topic was that Biden wants to announce in a speech 3 transforming steps that he will initiate regarding vaccines. Natalie presented our plan and there was discussions about using pharmacies first and then as we get more doses, opening up “Community Vaccine Centers”. I described status of the outbreak. Biden is much more in favor of federal presence than is the Trump administration. Slide deck is below: Slide Deck - COVID Policy Briefing 1 5.pd PRESS: Interview with Newsweek UK; AP Online interview with Lauren Neergaard; January 6, 2021 - Global – 84,800,000/1,900,000; USA – 21,000,000/356,000 Spoke on chat with Chiefs of Police and with Presidents of Jesuit Schools (led by Fr. Dan Lahart of Regis) Made rounds on COVID-19 patient at Clinical Center. I have been doing this about 1X per week. Saw patient today with COVID disease - 73 y.o. AA male, ex-marine, ex-State Trooper. Says this is worse he has ever felt. • My group (Mascola, Graham, Lane, Marston briefed the ART team led by Lu Borio and Marcella Nunez-Smith and David Kessler. We spoke about the mutant viruses in UK and RSA and their impact on mAbs and vaccines. 1. There is a significant increase in test positivity rate and a high hospital admission rate/case across all age groups 2. I have included the top 10 states for cases and it is a mix of states that were surging prior to the Holidays NY, TX, FL, GA, AZ and states that were improving or stabilzing prior to the Holidays CA, PA, OH, IL, NJ and tracking these states will be key to estimating the impact of the Holidays on cases and eventually hospitalizations The Fall surge in the Northern Plain states was more aggressive and we warned if this type of surge hit populous states this would threaten the health care system – this is what we are seeing in CA and to be clear this is spreading across the Sunbelt and into the North East. Trump incites riot as protestors storm the Capitol, break windows and occupy Pelosi’s office. Capitol Police utter failure to control them. Democrats take both Senate seats in Georgia Election - Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Biden electoral votes certified by Joint Session of Congress. Sens. Hawley and Cruz fight to the bitter end to their shame. Several senators who originally had supported the attempt to overthrow the election have changed their mind because of the shock of the storming of the Capitol PRESS: Podcast Fireside Chat with David Rubenstein for the Economic Club of Washington, DC; BNN Bloomberg Canadian TV; January 7, 2021 – Global – 85,500,000/1,900,000; USA – 21,300,000/360,000 Record number of deaths yesterday - >3963. Today another record at 4000. Surging continues. Slow start in the implementation of administration of vaccines. Was supposed to have 20 million doses distributed and administered by December 31. Today there have been 15 million distributed and 5 million administered. PRESS: NPR – “Morning Edition”, Noel King; France24 TV (Arabic language); WJLA TV; New York Times: NYT: Fauci says he thinks that January will get worse, and that the vaccination effort needs more time. January 8, 2021 – Global USA 4111 Deaths!! Record hospitalizations. I have been on the phone with Jeff Zients a few times today. I checked the number for projected requirement of vaccines to fulfill the promise of 100 million doses in arms in 1st 100 days of Biden administration. The number in the Biden slides (Kessler derived) was 275 million doses and 135 million people (getting 2 doses) by end of April. I called Moncef Slaoui and got the actual numbers and they totaled 189 million. I called Jeff and let him know. He checked with Kessler who then checked with Moncef and they figures that the doses that had already been allocated prior but not given yet would make up for the difference. I am concerned that we (Biden team) will not meet the promise. Too many vicissitudes in vaccine production. Perhaps Janssen will bale us out with the 25 million doses in March and 40 million in April (single dose required). Then, Biden team announced that they would not hold back any doses to save for 2nd shot, but will immunize everyone then can with doses they have. This places a lot of faith in the precision of the production/delivery of doses. They may have to pause with 1st doses to catch up with 2nd dose requirement. At 8:00 PM tonight as I was over Rob and Ellen’s “open Garage” dining room, Jeff Zients called me again asking for a favor. A Politico reporter is already getting ready to write a story spreading rumors that Biden is upset with his COVID team and Jeff is asking a favor for me to go on “background” and tell the reporter that they are doing a very good job. I told Jeff that I would of course be happy to do this. PRESS: NPR International – “The World”; C-SPAN doing “Facts and Faith” at VCU talk with Virginia Governor Northam. Speaking to Black Faith leaders January 9, 2021 - Global - 87,600,000/1,900,000; USA – 22,000,000/368,000 The pandemic is getting more scary. Every day more and more cases and deaths. Patients in the hallways in California. Nurses and MDs exhausted. It seems that people are getting infected who are being careful and have no idea why they are getting infected. N501Y mutation is here in the USA, but it is not dominant. We may actually have out own mutant that we have not recognized since the CDC has not really been looking. NEWS CLIPPING — POLITICO — CONDENSED (2 SOURCE PAGES) “Had conversation this AM 12:10 PM to 12:50 PM with 2 reporters from Politico (Adam Cancryn and Tyler Pager). Call set up by T.J. Ducklo (see note about regarding call from Jeff Zients). See above…” historical record of A.S. Fauci – Part 3 January 10, 2021 – Global – 88,400,000/1,900,000 USA – 22,100,000/371,100 And the surge goes on….. There is a real concern that we have our own mutant that is resulting in an increased surge in cases. People are saying they have no idea how they got infected since they have been observing public health recommendations. See below comments from Birx. After Thanksgiving the Northern Plains MN, IL, MI held and did not significantly deteriorate. In contrast this current post Holiday surge is causing deterioration in all metros including metros that were stable and metros that did not experience a significant post Thanksgiving surge. NYC has returned to case counts equal to the Spring recognizing we are testing at much higher rates but this surge is just beginning in NYC and with this current rate of rise of cases could drive significant cases, hospitalizations and deaths especially if it deteriorates at the rate of LA. Proactive setting up of infusion sites now is critical in all large metros and active immunization of those over 65. We have enough vaccine in the States to immunize nearly 15M senior which would be nearly 25% of all seniors over 65. We need to treat this current situation as the emergency it is. Deb Deb’s report: 1. Reporting has stabilized and we have returned to the pre-thanksgiving rate of cases as the current resurgence moves into the populous states from CA to TX to FL and resume a full log phase rate 2. EVERY METRO over 500K residents is deteriorating except Honolulu. - even those that had been stable now have rising cases slides 6-52 : NYC area is now reached cases greater than the Spring surge 3. All of the most populous states are deteriorating or continuing to deteriorate – CA, TX, FL, NY – only CA maybe showing signs of reaching a high plateau – TX, FL, NY will become the new epicenter of this surge over the next 3 weeks – I believe we have had our own evolved and more transmissible strain or strains since September by reviewing all the epidemiologic data – this fall/winter has a more rapid rate of rise from the beginning which predated Thanksgiving and continues at the rate post the Holidays (slide 3) – this rate of rise is now independent of the weather as it is occurring across the South, LA, etc - the surge is more difficult to mitigate - which will require more aggressive action to control and all actions need to be taken now to flatten this curve and preserve the health system) Normally the weekly high for fatalities is Wednesday – deeply concerning that both Weds Thurs and now Friday have deaths near 4000/day See graphs on slide set below (frightening): 10Jan2021DataSum mary.pptx Major discussion among Congress in invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump. Pelosi is going to go ahead with impeachment proceedings even though there would be no time to convict, they can impeach. Several people in the White House and Cabinet are resigning – Elaine Chao, Matt Pottinger. POTUS is attacking Pence for not going along with his attempts to overthrow the election. Poor Pence. He had been so loyal, but I am pleased to see that the goodness that I recognized in him is coming out, albeit a bit late in the game. The crazies in the Trump following are calling for the execution of Pence, similar to Crazy Steve Bannon calling for my beheading. PRESS: WGN Radio (Steve Dale) – Chicago; Satire from The Borowitz Report Fauci Says Immunity from Trump Requires Two Doses of Impeachment By Andy Borowitz January 11, 2021 – Global – 88,800,000/1,900,000; USA – 22,300,000/373,200 Surge continues unabated. Deb’s notes: 1. Reporting has stabilized and we have returned to the rapid prethanksgiving rate of cases as the current resurgence moves into the populous states from CA to TX to FL 2. Nearly all METROs over 500K residents is deteriorating. - even those that had been stable now have rising cases slides 22-26: NYC area is now reached cases greater than the Spring surge 3. All of the most populous states are deteriorating – CA, TX, FL, NY – only CA maybe showing signs of reaching a high plateau – TX, FL, NY will become the new epicenter of this surge over the next 3 weeks – as viruses evolve and strains are imported– the fall/winter has a more rapid rate of rise predating Thanksgiving and continues at the rate post the Continued discussion about invoking the 25th Amendment. Trump have been permanently banned from Twitter and at least temporarily from Facebook (maybe permanent). Trump stating that “it is only beginning”. Intelligence chatter indicating that there will be massive demonstrations and even violence associated with the inauguration. Mick Mulvaney made some interesting comments on a CNN Special on “insurrection”. When asked why so many people stuck with Trump when all the signs were there that he was acting crazy. Mick said that when you lie with him in the WH day after day, you see that he has accomplished a lot and you tend to downplay in your mind the signs of craziness. I even saw some of that during the time that I went to the WH every day for months in the Spring and Summer. Marc Short called me and asked for me to make connection with the Biden people and invite someone to today’s Task Force Meeting so that the Biden Team can get a feel for how the current task Force works. I called Jeff Zients and Jeff gave them Cyrus Shahpar who is on the Biden team and works for Tom Frieden. Did a chat with Bishop TD Jakes including Kizzy Corbett. Trying to Spoke with Pat Foye of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). They want me to do a 1 minute PSA to encourage their employees to get vaccinated. PRESS: Rural TV Network – “Rural Health Matters”, Nashville, TN TV; POLITICO: ‘There is a palpable concern’: Biden presses advisers over 100 million Covid shot goal (This relates to my conversation with Zients/Ducklo) CDC: No sign of homegrown U.S. coronavirus variant, but scientists need to look harder By Joel Achenbach, Kim Bellware and Hamza Shaban January 12, 2021 – Global – 89,400,000/1,900,000; USA – 22,500,000/375,100 4400 deaths today John Mascola working with David Ho to determine the possibility that the UK (N501Y; B.1.1.7) and/or the RSA mutants evade the antibodies induced by vaccines. According to Ho, the RSA mutants are much more troublesome in that they do not eliminate the protection of vaccine induced antibodies, but they definitely decrease by 2 to 3-fold their potency. David is now working on studying the UK mutant. Stay tuned. The next 4 weeks will be determined by whether the large Southern, upper Mid-West, Mid-Atlantic and North-East metros will be able to contain the rapid accelerating viral spread or have the prolonged log phase followed by the high plateau of LA (now entering month 3). Deb 1. Reporting has stabilized and we have returned to the rapid pre-thanksgiving rate of cases as the current resurgence moves into the populous states from CA to TX to FL : cases are up 7% from last week's same time period. 2. Nearly all METROs over 500K residents is deteriorating. - even those that had been stable now have rising cases slides 7-45: NYC area is now reached cases greater than the Spring surge Throughout “the 2019 flu season from Sept. 29 to Dec. 28, the CDC reported more than 65,000 cases of influenza nationwide,” while “during the same period last year, the agency reported 1,016 cases.” • Had discussion with Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance of the UK regarding their mutant and their vaccine program. They confirmed that the mutant is spreading widely in UK and other EU countries and also that there is no increase in virulence of escape from vaccine-induced antibodies. They also mentioned that they are more concerned about the RSA variant (mutants). • Did Fireside Chat with Barbara Bush on “Future Forum for Preparedness” (her Global Health Corps) Had discussion with Azar, Pence, and the OWS crew about vaccine rollout. We will as of tomorrow (announce at the Governor’s call) that we are changing our rollout strategy. We are going to be more flexible and not strictly wedded to the ACIP/CDC guidance of Phase 1a. We should continue that, but move on the people >65 years old and people 16 (or 18) to 64 with underlying conditions Am communicating with Stanley Tucci. He has heard through the media that I make Tympani: From: Stanley Tucci <sta914@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2021 2:28 PM To: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Cc: Lottie Birmingham <lottie.birmingham@icloud.com> Subject: Re: Stanley Tucci and Timpano Dr. Fauci, Thank you so much for your timely response and your kind words. The books will be whisking their way towards you imminently. It is my hope that someday we might prepare and enjoy a Timpano together. All the best to you and your family. With great respect and admiration, Stan On 12 Jan 2021, at 6:54 pm, Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> wrote: Mr. Tucci: Thank you for your very kind note. I was thrilled to hear from as I am a great fan of your acting and am looking forward to watching your CNN Special. I would be honored if you could send me autographed copies of your cook books. My address is 3012 – 43rd Street, NW; Washington, DC 20016. I hope that you are doing well during these difficult times. Please stay safe. Warm regards, Tony Jeff Zients called me to get approval of a statement that Biden will put out criticizing the Trump administration for opening up the floodgates of the Phases for vaccines (see above) given that there is not enough vaccine to go around at this point. Indicated that I did not like the statement sine it was a gotcha. Jeff did not like that but nonetheless changed it somewhat according to my suggestions. Here Are 18 Celebrities (And Public PRESS: Figures) Who Have Gotten The Coronavirus Vaccine From politicians to performers. by Matt Stopera BuzzFeed Staff January 13, 2021 – Global – 90,100,000/1,900,000; USA – 22,700,000/379,000 The surge continues. Could this be that we are dealing with our own highly contagious variant, but we do not realize it since the CDC sequencing surveillance has not been very comprehensive as has the UK surveillance? See below 1. Reporting has stabilized and we have returned to the rapid prethanksgiving rate of cases as the current resurgence moves into the populous states from CA to TX to FL : cases are up 7% from last week's same time period, as CA improves, the high population states of TX and FL will surge and the fatalities will increase, many states are reaching 0.2% rates per population deaths 2. Nearly all METROs over 500K residents is deteriorating. - even those that had been stable now have rising cases slides 15-18: NYC area is now reached cases greater than the Spring surge Trump impeached for 2nd time! Several Republicans vote in House for impeachment. Unlikely to come to trial in Senate until after inauguration. Biden does not want distraction from his 100 days agenda. Had zoom call with President of Ecuador – President Lenin Moreno Garces. We discussed the situation in Ecuador, vaccines and a whole bunch of questions that he had. Seems like a very smart person. I promised to advocate for equitable availability of vaccines throughout the world including Ecuador. Had Zoom call with Biden team – (Marcella Nunez-Smith, David Kessler, Rochelle Walensky, Vivek Murthy, Connolly Keigler and Maju Varghese). David led discussion regarding the inauguration. Originally there was supposed to be 250 people on the platform 6 feet apart ()POTUS and VP and Family, supreme court justices, leaders of Congress. 6 feet apart, all masked, all tested. Then then wanted 29,000 on the West Front. Maju Varghese was operationally responsible for arrangements. These 29,000 were cut down to 2000 by David (who is overall responsible for arrangements). The meeting today was to determine if we were OK with this. We all (Marcella, Rochelle, Vivek) voted that there should be no one on the West Front. I made the argument that some of the GOP Congressmen could make trouble by not wearing masks the way they refused when the Capitol was attacked and they were crowded in a room. Also, if someone gets infected, the press will jump on us. David will bring this back to Biden and Klain. Had regular every 2 weeks call with Bill Gates – Bill and Trevor Mundel know about the issue with the mutations that David Ho is working on. We discussed working together to track them as well as using Gates money to jump-start the development of mRNA vaccines to match the mutations (B.1.1.7 variant) with the N501Y mutation. We need to be ready to respond Front Page Story of Italian Magazine “I Love Sicilia” SKM_C754e2101131 7230.pdf Some Black Muslims accusing me of trying to experiment on Blacks. He mistakenly (deliberately) is ignoring that I, Pence, Biden, Harris have all gotten vaccinated. He is saying that Blacks would be the herd immunity that would protect whites: Beyond Tuskegee: Targeting of Black people for Covid-19 vaccine By Anisah Muhammad, Contributing Writer On January 10, Student Min. Muhammad, a researcher, scholar and author, delivered the Nation of Islam’s Sunday address at Mosque Maryam, titled, “Beyond Tuskegee: Why Black People Must Not Take the Experimental Covid-19 Vaccine.” “Why beyond Tuskegee? The vaccine mafia who want Black people to be the first injected with this experimental vaccine have centered the Tuskegee experiment in their narrative, most prominently Dr. Fauci. Let’s say we get 75 percent, 80 percent of the population vaccinated,” Dr. Fauci said on Dec. 9. “If we do that, if we do it efficiently enough over the second quarter of 2021, by the time we get to the end of the summer, i.e., the third quarter, we may actually have enough herd immunity protecting our society that as we get to the end of 2021, we can approach very much some degree of normality that is close to where we were before.” As of July 1, 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 76.3 percent of Americans are White. Bob Woodward came to my house tonight to deliver the transcripts of the tapes of his interviews of me for his book “Rage”. He said that it would help me with the writing of my book, He really wanted to come over and tape an interview with me about my current dealing with Biden. I explained the interactions with Biden (see above). Nothing controversial; however, it was clear why he wanted to come over. He is writing yet again another book. We met outside in the cold due to COVID-19 I wrote a belated birthday note to Joan Baez (her birthday was Jan.9, 1941). I had forgotten due to recent events at the Capitol, and so I wrote her a note apologizing. She wrote back: “Of course I accept!. There was a postcard circulating in Frace under a liberal administration in the eighties, “nous sommes tous dans la merde”. We are all in the shit. I don’t speak French anymore, but the post card stands out. Yes, we are the same age! You are a rock star and I am a badass, and age is very much beside the point. Thinking of you. Joan” PRESS: WPIX TV New York City with Dan Mannarino; Children’s Hour Public Radio; WMBD radio and WYZZ TV (Central Illinois); The Children’s Hour Public Radio; January 14, 2021 – Global – 90,800,000/2,000,000; USA - 23,000,000/383,400 Note from David Ho. Mutants are becoming very troublesome: Here is an overview first. Will share detailed organized data in a couple of days. I am available to chat at a mutually convenient time. Patrick Vallance from the UK is reaching out to me to get preliminary results as well. We have constructed SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses that contain all 8 mutations in the UK variant and all 9 mutations in the SA variant. In addition, we have also constructed pseudoviruses that contain each of the 16 mutations (501Y mutation is shared) individually. This entire panel has been tested on a collection of ~30 spikespecific neutralizing monoclonal antibodies, 20 convalescent plasma, and 18 vaccinee sera (Moderna and Pfizer). First, both UKdelta8 and SAdelta9 showed increased replication capacity in vitro, which is consistent with their increased transmissibility in vivo. Overall, the impact on virus neutralization is profound, with the SA variant being worse than the UK variant. It is quite clear that these two variants could now resist several classes of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies already used in the clinic or still in development, and in most cases we understand which of the mutations are conferring the resistance. This information is particularly relevant to companies like Lilly and Regeneron, which have approved clinical products that are severely affected by these results. In addition, a large majority of convalescent plasma samples showed an appreciable loss in activity against the new variants, suggesting re-infection may be more likely when confronted with either of these two strains. Finally, we also observed a significant impact on vaccinee sera in that every serum sample tested showed a substantial loss in neutralizing activity against the SA variant, whereas the loss in activity against the UK virus is not as large or as universal. Again, we believe the latter findings should be shared promptly with the field, because these new strains threaten the effectiveness of the current vaccines. Importantly, the strategy that the UK is now contemplating (giving one dose and delaying the second dose) is quite dangerous in that one or two additional critical mutations on top of either strain (under suboptimal antibody concentrations induced by one shot without a booster) could render current monoclonal antibodies and vaccines useless. Our data are germane to that debate. Our data are more or less complete, except for live virus neutralization results. We are still waiting for the UK and SA to be distributed by the US government to our lab. We expect to have the live viruses soon, and could generate the confirmatory results in about 7-10 days after receiving the viruses. • Received the Ken Shine Prize in Health Leadership from the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School • Briefed the Congresssional Blue Dog (moderate Dems) and Moderate GOP members led by Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) and Rep John Katko (R-NY) • Met with Rep. Espaillat (D-NY) who want me to meet with a contingent from the Dominican Republic. I will do so, but after the inauguration • Got call from Beth Cameron (NSC) informing me that Biden want me to be the Head of WHO delegation and to announce on January 21 (4:10 AM ET) that the USA is back in the WHO. • Biden give big speech (7:15 PM) announcing $1.9 trillion budget package including $415 Billion for COVID response PRESS: KSEE24 TV (NBC Affiliate in Fresno, CA) January 15, 2021 – Global – 91,500,000/2,000,000; USA – 23,200,000/387,300 Had Zoom briefing of Biden and Harris to prep them for the speech that Biden will give at 3:45 PM on the vaccine rollout plan. We briefed him at 2:30 to 3:30 and he and Harris (only he spoke) gave briefing to the Nation. Biden announced today that he has asked Francis Collins to stay on. I had some influence on this. Eric Lander will be head of OSTP. Considerable concern about the new mutants in UK, Brazil and especially South Africa – David Ho is studying this carefully and finds that the UK variant results in a 2-fold decrease in ability of vaccine-induced antibodies to neutralize. For the South African variant it is 4 to 5-fold decrease. Had Zoom with David and John Mascola and others and David went over the Mutant data. Bottom line is that against the UK mutant the vaccine (Moderna)-induced sera is weakened by 2-fold; however, against the RSA (and by extrapolation although did not look the Brazilian) mutant the sera are diminished by 5-fold) MAJOR IMPLICATIONs for vaccine development and for policy such as letting people into the country PRESS: Ebro in the Morning Radio Show in NYC; Today Show NBC TV with Craig Melvin; CTV - Canadian TV – Sunday Show (Ian Wood); WUSA TV Jan Jeffcoat; January 16, 2021 – Global – 92,300,000/2,000,000; USA – 23,400,000/391,000 Jeff Zients gave me the entire Biden plan to look at and approve - I mentioned to him in detail the recent data from David Ho. We will set up a call for Sunday with the Biden team (doctors) since now several teams such as Michel Nussenzweig, Jess Bloom and others are finding the same thing as Ho. I want the call on Sunday since Michel is publishing his data in BioRx on Monday. I will bring John Mascola on the call with me to describe with some slides. Also, I have pushed with JZ to get Ned Sharpless re-appointed as NCI Director otherwise his resignation letter will go into effect on January 20. I asked JZ to get in touch with Ron Klain and re-appoint hi. JZ called me back this evening and said he spoke to Ron and Ned will stay as NCI Director. Post-holiday surge seems to be stabilizing. See Deb’s comment below: 1. For the first time in weeks all indicators except fatalities are flat or declining. This suggests with full data triangulation that we have reached in most of the country the post Holiday peak and declines should continue to follow with continued mitigation. Testing rates have resumed to pre Holiday levels as for the first time week over week cases have declined (SLIDE 4) from last week's high – but testing for asymptomatic cases must increase to sustain the gains. Finding the containing the silent spread will be key to holding the current gains 2. CA is stabilizing at a high plateau and if AZ, FL, TX, NY can hold at their current plateau or early declines we could see National improvement beginning next week and improvement in fatality rates in 30 days but not without reaching 450K in 4 weeks and 500K fatalities over the next 8 weeks based on current case load and rate of rises 3. Most of the rapidly rising metros appear to be reaching peak or at a high plateau and some like Chicago and NYC are beginning to decline. The key will be continued aggressive mitigation 4. New COVID hospital admissions are stable at a high plateau nationally but if the larger states and metros can hold or improve the rates should steadily decline if we can keep everyone focused on vigilance as we vaccinate PLEASE SEE SLIDE 3 SHOWING ICU BED OCCUPACY – SHOWING CLEARLY THE PRIMARY CURRENT STATES WITH THE WINTER SURGE PRESS: January 17, 2021 – Global – 92,300,000/2,000,000; USA – 23,700,000/395,000 We may have reached the peak of the surge upon a surge 1. For the first time in weeks all indicators except fatalities are flat or declining. This suggests with full data triangulation that we have reached the post Holiday peak in most of the country and declines should continue with continued mitigation. These gains can be sustained and can accelerate if behavior change holds 2. Test positivity is declining. Testing rates have resumed to pre Holiday levels as for the first time week over week cases have declined from last week's high – but testing for asymptomatic cases must increase to sustain the gains. Finding the containing the silent spread will be key to holding the current gains. 3. Cases are declining or stable across the country (down 8.8%) • John Mascola and I presented to JZ and the Biden medical team the results from David Ho’s work on the UK and RSA mutants. (see above). We explained that this requires careful messaging since people would interpret incorrectly that this nullifies the vaccine which it does not. JZ has tasked me to write a 2-paragraph description to send to Biden tonight. I did so and now we have a meeting tomorrow AM to discuss possibility of travel restrictions from RSA and Brazil. PRESS: Meet the Press (NBC) with Chuck Todd; Che Tempo Che Fa Italian Sunday TV Show; MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell January 18, 2021 – Global – 94,000,000/2,000,000; USA – 23,800,000/397,000 Zoom meeting at 7:30 AM with JZ and the team + Jake Sullivan – discussed the restrictions on travel to RSA, Brazil and perhaps other countries. Leaning towards requiring PCR 72 hrs before board to USA followed by Ag test upon boarding followed by Ag test within 3 days of landing + quarantine. Will present to Ron Klain and POTUS after inauguration. Deb Birx’s next to last TF note: This is the last metro case analysis. We are seeing mostly significant improvements or major metros holding at a high plateau. I am worried about the 12 metros that are still increasing and one of them is DC. I walked some of the areas downtown on Sat while I was moving out of my State Dept office and there are major feeding tents set up around downtown for the workers and National Guard – these can be super spreading locations and the National Guard is from around the country including hotspots. National Guard troops must be tested and must be tested when returning but I worry we are creating a massive viral spreading event as troops deploy to DC and then return home and the co-mixing of local metro police with National Guard. That said by all indicators we are stabilizing as a country and improvements should continue. New hospital admissions are down across the country and is super spreading events can be managed we should continue to see improvements as more states will be able to utilize health personnel to support massive vaccination. On the personal level getting the elderly – the highest risk group over 75 - immunized is incredibly difficult. We have the entire family working to secure sites for my parents but you need to be tech savvy and able to constantly refresh sites and search multiple county and state websites. Then you have to be able to transport and move them to the vaccine sites. We think we may have secured a PG county option for this week but if elderly do not have tech support or outreach and transportation support this will be incredibly difficult for them. Deb 1. For the first time in weeks all indicators except fatalities are improving and are either flat at a high plateau or declining over 7 days. This suggests with full data triangulation that we have reached the post-Holiday peak in most of the country and declines should continue with continued mitigation. These gains can be sustained and can accelerate if behavior change holds and testing increases to find the asymptomatic cases to prevent community spread Had farewell conversation with Vice President Pence. I called up Marc Short to ask him to have the VP call me today since I was not sure that I would be able to attend (virtually) the last TF meeting this Tuesday. The VP called and we had a very touching and person discussion saying how much he respected me and how the TF would not have been able to accomplish what it did without me. He was very touched. I told him how important it was for his legacy that he acted with such dignity and resolve over the last days when he refused to go along with Trump’s attempt to get him to overthrow the election results. WE parted by saying we will always be there for each other. Received material from Beth Cameron for my announcement on early AM of Jan. 21 that we will re-join the WHO. I will edit it and get it re-approved. Very nice that I have been chosen to be head of delegation to the WHA in Geneva (virtually) to make this announcement. Summary of some events over past few days/weeks: Jeff Zients calls me multiple times per day checking facts, etc. I brought up to him that it would be a good idea for continuity that he keep on Francis as NIH director since if he does not act to tear up the required letter of resignation, Francis automatically is gone and we have an acting (which would not be bad since Larry Tabak is great). Ned Sharpless is in the same boat as presidential appointee at NCI. And so I mentioned to Jeff that we should keep Ned on and he made it happen. And so, in fact I am responsible for keeping the NIH and NCI Directors in their jobs. A surprise is that Harold Varmus called me up and expressed great concern that Francis was staying on. He said many substantial members of scientific community (Bruce Alberts, Shirley Tilghman, etc) are quite concerned and feel that it is time for a change. I explained to Harold that this was probably temporary and related to need for continuity related to COVID-19 efforts. He is trying to get momentum to have this reversed. Harold has always felt that change is important PRESS: TNT “The Arena” with Cari Champion; January 19, 2021 – Received booster dose of Moderna vaccine today together with Francis Collins and Alex Azar. Said goodbyes to Alex and Brian Harrison (his COS). Alex described how terrible it was dealing with the White House people. He specifically mentioned Marc Short. He feels that Marc, Joe Grogan, and Deb. Birx undermined HHS. Deb Last e-mail: 1. The country is in a better place than we have been since before Thanksgiving. All indicators except fatalities are improving and are either flat at a high plateau or declining over 8 days. Monday represents weekend reporting but last night was the lowest case number since the beginning of Nov. Full data triangulation that we have reached the post Holiday peak in most of the country and declines should continue with continued mitigation. These gains can be sustained and can accelerate if behavior change holds and testing increases to find the asymptomatic cases to prevent community spread – we must find those asymptomatic cases to ensure new aggressive variants rapidly spread undetected Last coronavirus Task Force meeting. VP asked Ben Carson to start with a prayer. VP Pence saying goodbye and how proud he is of what the group has accomplished. He read a letter that he is sending to all of us thanking us. He also has chronicled the “accomplishments” of the TF and the government’s efforts. He will send such a letter and the list of accomplishments to Biden. He thanked all of us sincerely and expressed multiple times how much of a privilege it was to work for us. He asked that we help the incoming Biden people in the transition (a little late!!!) Alex Azar warned that their work would be denigrated by the incoming group and their press people, but that is “natural”. Alex delineated everything that he felt we did right. He spoke of our accomplishments in testing, PPE, etc. One would argue about that. Deb Birx spoke about how great it was in working with everyone. She spoke of trust and belief in your colleagues. Wow, this is interesting given how often she threw CDC under the bus and how she and Marc Short were in disagreement on everything, and how she hated Brett Giroir and badmouthed him all the time saying that he always promised more than he could deliver. Brett Giroir praised the VP and said that the VP brought out the best in everyone. VP Pence asked me to say words. I praised him and also praised the VP’s staff. I did not mention Marc Short and Katie Miller, but they knew I was referring to them. Bob Redfield praised the VP as well as Deb Birx. Pete Gaynor explained what a honor it was to work for the VP. VP then thanked a number of people including Jerome Adams, VP staff, Marc Short, Katie Miller and others, Ben Carson, Keith Kellog. VP signed off to a resounding round of applause! PRESS: The PBS Masters people have started filming in earnest for their documentary; interviewed by Adi Ignatius and others for the Harvard Business Review; NYT: As Fauci receives his second dose, he urges Americans to get vaccinated; CNN with Jake Tapper; January 20, 2021 - Global – 94,000,000/2,000,000; USA – 24,000,000/400,300 Inauguration Day! Trump refusing to attend inauguration and left with a flare that was very sparsely attended. Biden was at Mass as Trump flew off to Mar-a-Largo. Trump’s speech was surrealistic talking about all the great accomplishments of his Presidency. He also strongly hinted that he will be back with a “movement”. He is a very dangerous man!! I am preparing for my early AM speech to WHO Executive Board tomorrow. Beth Cameron has given me much leeway on the Speech (which her staff put together). Mutants of SARS-CoV-2 getting much play in the scientific “preprint” arena. Final papers will soon come out. We will put restrictions (requirement for pre - and post - flight testing + quarantine) from RSA. Will brief POTUS Biden tomorrow. Am still quite achy from vaccine booster shot from yesterday. Here are my remarks for WHO tomorrow early (4:00 AM) morning: Remarks of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci at Got a call from Jared Kushner from Air Force 1 on his way to Mar-a-Largo thanking me for what we did with COVID-19 Spectacular Inauguration speech by Biden! Poem by Amanda Gorman was amazing (she is 22 years old). Lady Gaga sang the national anthem; J-Lo sang, as did Garth Brooks. Biden hit the right tone. The speech was in my mind comparable to those of Lincoln, Kennedy, FDR Quotes from speech: “Let us not lead by example of power, but by the power of example”; “We must end this uncivil war” PRESS: Dr. Fauci to lead U.S. delegation at WHO CNBC - meetings as Biden plans to reverse Trump withdrawal Published Wed, 8:41 AM EST Noah Higgins-Dunn@higginsdunn January 21, 2021 – Global – 95,000,000/2,000,000; USA – 24,300,000/405,000 Made speech at Executive Board of WHO (4:00 AM ET) to announce that USA is rejoining WHO. Also, we are rescinding Mexico City Policy. I spoke as representing newly inaugurated President Biden Remarks of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci at Tedros response: WHO Director-General's remarks at the 148th session of the Executive Board 21 January 2021 Thank you, my brother Tony, and welcome to the WHO Executive Board as head of delegation for the United States of America. Thank you, my friend, for your personal support for WHO over many years, and especially in the past year. We have benefited immensely from your participation as a member of our regular global health leaders calls, since the start of the pandemic. And thank you for your incredible leadership against the pandemic in the United States. This is a good day for WHO, and a good day for global health. I send my deep thanks and warm congratulations to President Biden and Vice President Harris, and to the American people. Terrific day! Briefed Biden and Harris in the State Dining Room of the White House. Together with JZ, Natalie Quillian, Rochelle Walensky, Marcella Nunez-Smith. Really relaxed and warm interchange with both Biden and Harris. Then, I went with Jen Psaki and did a press briefing in the White House press room (first time in a long time). They really want me out there and there is no pushback at all for my appearances. CNN went into major panel discussions about the fact that Biden chose me as the first scientific press briefing. PRESS: Did full press briefing in the White House press room. Washington Post article by Philip Bump: Fauci, unchained The government’s leading infectious-disease expert exults in being able to speak frankly Fauci says it's 'liberating' to 'let the science speak' Good Morning America (ABC) with Michael Strahan; CBS Sunday with Ted Koppel; CNN with Chris Cuomo; January 22, 2021 – Global – 96,000,000/2,000,000; USA – 24,500,000/409,000 Some confusion about whether 100 million doses in 100 days or 100 millionb people in 100 days. Finally straightened it out and it is “doses” not “people”. Press are starting in aready in first criticizing that the goal is too lofty and now they are saying that the bar is tyoo low since we are already getting 800K per day. You just cannot win. PRESS: CNN New Day with John Berman; Black News Channel with former Mayor Sharon Pratt; WTOP Radio with Mike Murillo; University of Montana Student newspaper (Jacob Owens); NPR – “All Things Considered” – Mary Louise Kelly; NBC LX TV with Tabitha Lipkin and Ashley Holt; Conference of Mayors Panel – with Vivek Murthy – picked up by networks, cable, and C-SPAN; MSNBC – Rachel Maddow; January 23, 2020 – Global – 97,000,000/2,000,000; USA – 24,700,000/413,000 PRESS: Vaccine Town Hall with Ebro Darden & Kizzy Corbett; MSNBC with Alex Witt; Interview with Donald McNeil for the New York Times on my experience with the Trump administration; MSNBC “Politics Nation” with Rev. Al Sharpton; Stat: The 10 Biden officials to watch on the Covid-19 response By RACHEL COHRS @rachelcohrs JANUARY 21, 2021 January 24, 2021(Sunday) – Global – 97,500,000/2,100,000; USA – 25,000,000/416,000 Deb Birx had a 45 minute taped interview with Margaret Brennan right after me. It was moving in some respects, but a fair bit of revisionist history. PRESS: CBS “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan; CBS Sunday with ted Koppel; Donald McNeil interview in the NY Times: NYT: Fauci on What Working for Trump Was Really Like January 25, 2021 – Global – 99,000,000/2,100,000; USA – 25,000,000/418,000 • Did really good WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM Panel chaired by John Mickethwait (Bloomberg) with panelists: Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis; Nancy Brown (CEO of American Heart Association) and Frans van Houten (CEO of Royal Philips) • The vaccine is now being referred to as the “Fauci Ouchie” • Many interviews today focusing in part on the fact that Deb (on Face the Nation) and I (in the interview with Donald McNeill) opened up about the difficulties in dealing with Trump Administration. A lot of discussion about the RSA and UK variants and the potential effect on mAbs and importantly vaccines. Thus far, even though the mutants diminish somewhat the efficacy of the vaccines, the antibody response of the vaccine is still within the cushion of efficacy. Recent data indicate that the UK strain is also increased in virulence as well as transmissibility. On an interview with Erin Burnett (CNN) I went PRESS: Good Morning America (ABC) with George Stephanopoulos; Today Show with Savannah Guthrie; CBS This Morning with Tony Mason; Latino USA Radio with Maria Hinojosa (NYC); Fireside chat with Leroy Hood on receiving the 2021 Precision Medicine World Conference Luminary Award; WBUR Boston NPR Radio; WGN Radio Chicago – Bob Sirott Show; ABC TV News Live Lindsey Davis; Spectrum News TV with Alex Cohen; CNN with Erin Burnett; January 26, 2020 - Global – 99,000,000/2,100,000; USA – 25,200,000/420,000 VP Harris visited NIH for her booster shot with Husband Greg Emhoff. She and I did a PSA together. Had moving conversation with Moncef Slaoui who felt that the Biden people were discrediting and bad-mouthing OWS that Moncef led. In fact, Moncef did a fabulous job in getting 2 vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer) approved (EUA) that are highly efficacious with other candidates (Janssen, AZ, Novavax) not far behind. He feels badly for the OWS team and for himself. I told him that he has done a fabulous and historic job in what he accomplished. I told him that to me and many others, he is a hero. He was very touched by the conversation. • Got on my usual Tuesday evening Zoom call with health officials throughout the country (Hosted by David Barr) and asked question of what the problem was with doses of vaccine. Was it that we had doses but could not logistically get them into the arms of people OR was it that the demand far outstripped the supply. Overwhelmingly they said that there was not enough supply. Group was: Sharon Balter (LA), Jeff Duchin (Seattle), Jennifer Avegno (NOLA), Allison Arwady (Chicago), La Quandra Nesbitt (DC), Marci Layton (NYC) • Spoke with basketball mega-star Karl-Anthony Town. Terrific young man. He has COVID-19. His mother died of COVID-19. He is Columbian and was brought to my attention by Congressman Espaillat from NYC who is Columbian. PRESS: FOX America’s Newsroom with Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer; NBC TV Special with Richard Engel; January 27, 2020 - Global USA Really good relations developing with the WH Comms team led by Jen Psaki and particularly Courtney Rowe. Dramatic difference from Trump WH Comms Did “Fireside Chat” with NEJM – Eric Rubin and Lindsey Baden • 315 cases of the B.1.1.7 lineage (UK) in 28 states; RSA lineage B.1.351 is worrisome as it is evading mAbs and diminishing neutralizing caoacity of Abs from vaccines. Very important historical review in USA Today about the development of the Moderna vaccine: USA Today: Luck, foresight and science: How an unheralded team developed a COVID-19 vaccine in record time https://bit.ly/36i7ffM PRESS: White House Press Conference with Walensky, Fauci, Slavitt, and Zients; The Hill TV with Steve Clemons; Fox America Reports TV with John Roberts and Sandra Smith; PBS South Florida Town Hall; CNN Town Hall with Sanjay Gupta and Anderson Cooper – on with Rochelle Walensky; Daily Beast: Dr. Fauci Shoots Down Fox News Host Bill Hemmer’s Trump Questions ‘READY TO MOVE ON’ “It just seems like there’s this aggressiveness toward the Trump administration,” Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer pressed. Dr. Anthony Fauci wasn’t having it. Article in The Atlantic by Peter Nicholas – will clearly cause a stir: How Anthony Fauci Got Through the ‘Bullshit’ The new White House chief medical adviser reflects on the last year working for the Trump administration. Peter Nicholas Fox News pundit Steve Hilton pushed a FOX News: ridiculous conspiracy theory that Dr. Fauci is behind the coronavirus January 28, 2020 – Global – 100,200,000/2,200,000; USA – 25,500,000/428,000 Tedros called me up and aske me to help him connect with the Biden people, i.e. Sec Becerra, Jeff Zients, the VP, etc. Stewart Simonson willing to help me since I am ultra busy. Had confidential conversation with the Janssen people – Paul Stoffels et al about the Ad26 vaccine data. Not that great. 77% VE in USA and ~50% in RSA. Will get more details later. Data better against severe disease but this will be a messaging problem. Novavax and Janssen came out with their embargoed (until tomorrow) results of their trials: Novavax phase 3 in UK – 90% VE; Phase 2b in RSA – 50% VE. Janssen phase 3 in USA/RSA/Brazil - 72% VE at 28 days (a 1 dose vaccine); 85% VE against severe disease; 57% VE in mod/severe disease in RSA at 28 days and 88% VE with severe disease in RSA Much press activity and emphasis on the fact that antigenic variation has clinical consequences. Also, with both vaccines, good news for the global supply PRESS: Good Morning America (ABC) with George Stephanopoulos; NPR Morning Edition with Sarah McCammon; January 29, 2020 – Global USA • Fireside Chat with NYC Health Commissioner David Chokshi Met with Jeff Zients and Team to discuss what to do with 2nd dose of vaccine, i.e. hold it back completely, hold it back 90%?? PRESS: Did press conference at NIH for the release of the Janssen data; Did White House press conference for COVID-19 in general; PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff; NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt; WUSA TV with Gabe Cohen; New York Press Club Fireside Chat with Steve Scott; Filming with Sanjay Gupta for CNN Documentary; January 30, 2021 – Global – 101,400,000/2,200,000; USA – 25,900,000/435,2000 Daily cases continue to come down, but growing concern about the arrival of mutants: B.1.1.7 (UK) in 30 states and 434 people infected; B1.351 (South Africa) with 2 cases in South Carolina; P.1 (Brazil with 1 case in Minnesota RSA strain identified today in person in Maryland Went on a filmed walk with Sanjay Gupta and Chris on the C & O Canal as part of the Documentary that he is doing (See yesterday). Had zoom call with Rob Manfred (Commissioner of MLB) and Dan Halem (Deputy Commissioner). They want to delay opening Spring training from February 17 to March17 and have a comparable delay in opening day. They want to do this since they feel (rightly so) that the decreases in cases will be even more pronounced with an additional month and they will be able to get more of the umpires and players vaccinated with the delay. Of note, Tom Frieden spoke with the MLB Players Association and the players want to start earlier since it affects their salaries. Now the Players want to speak with me. January 31, 2021 (Sunday) – Global – 102,100,000/2,200,000; USA – 25,900,000/438,000 Zoom calls today discussing: a) vaccinations for the Federal workforce b) Vivek just wanting to discuss masks, variants, schools, etc. – touching base. February 1, 2021 – Global – 102,600,000/2,200,000; USA -26,000,000/440,000 Had usual MWF Press conference by Zoom Had discussion with the team (+John Mascola) about how best to utilize the J & J product (Ad26). There will be a messaging issue about 72% versus 94-95%. We cannot designate it for any specific group for that reason and so we decided to just out it in the mix with the other vaccines and have people make their choice based mostly on 1 dose vs 2 doses. Got call tonight from Mayor Bill Di Blasio very concerned that the supply of vaccine for NYC is no where near meeting demand. He is begging me to check with WH and see if anything can be done – DPA or some other mechanism. I will speak with David Kessler about this. PRESS: White House Press conference with Nunez-Smith, Walensky and Slavitt; mGreta van Sustern – VOA; KMEX 34 TV – Los Angeles – Hispanic; CNN Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer February 2, 2021 – Global – 103,000/2,200,000; USA -26,200,000/442,000 Daily cases going down but deaths still lagging at around 3000 per day Mutants continue to evolve with the 484K mutation characteristics of the B.1.351 lineage in RSA now being seen in the UK with the B.1.1.7 lineage. Goes along with what I have been saying that viruses will mutate if you give them free rein to replicate. Viruses that do not replicate will not mutate. Bill DiBlasio called me back and I explained to him that I had spoken to David Kessler about the Supply-demand issue with the vaccines and that there really was no solution. It is too late to invoke the DPA to have other factories make mRNA vaccine. By the time they gear up, there will be enough vaccine from multiple companies to vaccinate the entire country. Met with POTUS and VP in the Oval office with Jeff Zients, Natalie Quillian, Andy Slavitt and Walensky and Nunez-Smith on video screen. Discussed the status of the outbreak (Walensky) and vaccines, particularly recent data on J & J and implications for variants (Fauci) PRESS: Washington Post Live – Online interview with David Ignatius; Australia “60 Minutes” TV; MSNBC “All In” with Chris Hayes; CNN with Don Lemon Washington Post – 02/02/2021: Poor handling of virus cost Trump his reelection, campaign autopsy finds “Voters in the states overwhelmingly supported a mask mandate — 75 percent — and Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease specialist, secured an approval rating almost as high. Trump did not support a mask mandate — sometimes mocking the wearing of masks — and regularly criticized Fauci, threatening to fire him at times. Advisers repeatedly encouraged Trump to wear a mask, stop attacking Fauci and signal to the public that he was taking the coronavirus more seriously” How Anthony Fauci beat Donald Trump in February 3, 2021 - Global USA Biden Comms team putting me out there with the press continually. They are giving me totally open clearance for everything that I get asked to do. Completely different from the ridiculous restrictions of the Trump Comms team • Daily cases continuing to come own. Much emphasis on the impact of the variants. PRESS: ABC Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos; NBVC Today Show with Savannah Guthrie; February 4, 2021 – Global – 104,000,000/2,3200,000; USA – 26,400,000/449,000 Discussions last night and prior evenings regarding the use of the excess J & J vaccine of clinical trial grade. Move to donate this to RSA to vaccinate their HCWs. RSA has been pleading with the USA to help them get vaccines since they are being ravaged by the B.1.351 variant. Phone call last night with David Kessler, Beth Cameron/Hilary Marston (NSC), me and Cliff Lane to figure out a mechanism to get this to them since it is only clinical trial grade. And we want to avoid the optics that we are either a) giving away vaccine meant for USA to RSA or b) we are “experimenting” on black Africans. • Gave one of several plenary addresses at a Brookings -Tsinghua University Roundtable of US-China Collaboration on COVID-19. Chinese Speakers included Zhong Nanshan, Wang Chen, Gao Fu Had nice conversation with the MLB Players Association with Tony Clark (Exec Director), Bruce Meyer (Senior Director, Collective Bargaining and Legal), Ian Penny (General Counsel), Kevin Slowey (Director Player Services), Matthew Nessbaum (Deputy General Counsel), Robert Lenaghan (Assistant General Counsel) and Max Scherzer (member, Exec. Comm.). They asked great questions about vaccines. I emphasized that I did not want to get in the middle of a dispute between MLB and players regarding when to start the season. They understood perfectly. I had some nice back and forth with Max Scherzer. PRESS: BBC Radio with Tim Harford; NBC TV Boston – LaToya Edwards; MSNBC with Ari Melber; NBC TV “off the record” discussion with the entire NBC TV team; CNN with Chris Cuomo. February 5, 2021 – Global USA - Had terrific conversation today with Bob Cousy. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) had called me a couple of weeks ago saying that Bob Cousy would love to connect with me by phone, Joe is a good friend of Cousy’s. I called Bob’s cell phone and we spent 20 minutes chatting about all kinds of things. He has a great sense of humor. He is disturbed by the devisiveness in our society (similar to my concern). He spoke about his being 92 years old and that he body in “falling apart” despite the fact that he has “all my smarts”. He is a rally charming guy. We developed a great rapport on the phone. Note that he came to my lecture at Holy Cross a few years ago and we had dinner together. PRESS: Had usual White House Virtual Press Conference with Andy Slavitt, Rochelle, me and Tim ….; FOX TV with Neil Cavuto; February 6, 2021- Global -105,000,000/2,300,000; USA – 26,700,000/458,000 Had Zoom call with David Kessler and the BARDA people trying to decide whether to invest considerable money in guaranteed purchase of the Lilly mAb combination that will soon go for an EUA. Their data look fairly good for treatment of early disease to prevent hospitalization and PEP • Got call from Mike Osterholm trying to convince me to go with his concern/recommendation that we go with1st doses to as many people as possible given the fact that B.1.1.7 (UK) may become dominant in the USA and increase cases/hospitalization. This is a difficult problem sine we only have data for prime/boost with mRNA vaccines. February 7, 2021 (Sunday) – Global – 105,400,000/2,300,000; USA – 26,800,000/461,000 Superbowl Sunday! Tom Brady beast Patrick Mahomes PRESS: Meet the Press (NBC) with Chuck Todd; February 8, 2021 – Global – 106,000,000/2,300,000; USA – 27,000,000/462,000 Important point is that the vaccines are protecting against severe disease (hospitalization and death): First day since Nov. 2 that daily cases were less than 100,000: Kat McKinnon played me again on Saturday Night Live: https://bit.ly/36SyePm Did fireside chat with Prince Georges County - County Executive Angela Alsobrooks and Drs. Carter and Wright to discuss vaccine in the African-American community PRESS: AP Interview with Mike Stobbe; FOX TV News “Special Report” with Bret Baier February 9, 2021 – Global – 106,100,000/2,300,000; USA – 27,000,000/464,000 Eric Lander (OSTP) visited the VRC today and I we briefed him on our activities, particularly the development of the mRNA vaccine and Barney’s development of the stabilized pre-fusion Spike protein. Of note, Martin Fletcher of the Daily Telegraph did a profile of me and told me that the London Times had asked him to gather information for them for an obituary that the Times wanted to put “in the can” just in case I passed away suddenly. They wanted to be the first to have an obituary PRESS: Fireside Chat with the COVID Collaborative – Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, Gov. Deval Patrick, and Gary Edson; Interview with Martin Fletcher of the Daily Telegraph for a profile of me; February 10, 2021 – Global – 106,600,000/2,300,000; USA – 27,000,000/467,000 Cases continue to fall considerably. We are now at less than 100,000 cases per day, when we were up to 400,000 at one time. • Had zoom with Dr. Hans Kluge WHO Regional Director for Europe • Did Fireside Chat with David Rubenstein as part of the Duke Global Health Institute Victor Dzau Lecture • Pleasant thing – I had mentioned on a radio or TV show that what I missed most about NYC was the Nathan’s hot dogs. Today sitting on my home from steps were two packages of Nathan’s hot dogs – a gift with a nice note from Tim Shriver saying that he “could not resist the hot dog invitation”. Had a wonderful experience this evening. I received (virtually) the Award of Courage from AmFAR. It was presented to me virtually by Julia Roberts from her breakfast room in her home in Northern California. She was so charming. When my image came up on the screen she gasped and said that every time she sees me her throat gets dry and she gets nervous and excused herself to go into the kitchen and get a glass of water. When she came back and introduced me it was the most wonderful introduction. She introduced me to her son while we waited to check the filming and we chatted a bit. She is so charming, natural, fun and amazingly beautiful. PRESS: Did routine MWF White House Press conference. I spoke about making sure that people with immune deficiencies or on immunosuppressive drugs get vaccinated since they are very vulnerable; Interview with Rima Krist of the Navajo Times February 11, 2021 – Global – 107,000,000/2,300,000; USA – 27,100,000/470,100 Number of daily cases continue to diminish. CDC starting to do practical things that I have actually been pushing for some time. For example: Wearing 2 masks could be better than just one. They did a dummy study and showed that a cloth mask over a surgical mask actually gives a more complete fit and keeps out aerosols. Another example is that people who are vaccinated do not need to go into quarantine after exposure to a documented COVID-19 case. POTUS Biden visit to NIH. Biden visited the NIAID VRC today at 3:30 PM on a sleety and snowy day. It was a great visit. I presented to him the history of the VRC and the importance of the work that Barney Graham has done with the stabilized spike protein. We brought Biden into the room where the experiments were done and Barney and Kizzy Corbet presented to him. He was accompanied by Jeff Zients. We then went to Natcher Auditorium where he addressed (virtually) the NIH community with a great speech in which he called out Francis and I multiple times. PRESS: Today Show (NBC) with Savannah Guthrie – discussed new mask recommendations from CDC and the B.1.1.7 variant; BBC Radio; “What a Day” podcast; CNN Sports TV with Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson; Univision TV interview; Axios TV for HBO – update with Margaret Talev Nice article in Vogue: For Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Christine Grady, Love Conquers All By Michelle Ruiz Power Players CNBC: Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci talk regularly — here’s what they’re discussing now Published Thu, 12:25 PM ESTUpdated Thu, 12:26 PM EST Cory Stieg@corystieg February 12, 2021 – Global – 107,000,000/2,400,000; USA – 27,200,000/474,000 David Kessler and I had discussion with Sen. Burr and Murray about viral variants. They wanted to be briefed on the threat and what we are doing about it. Did a briefing of the Foreign Press with Andy Slavitt Briefed the Deputies and Cabinet Secretaries led by Jeff Z. PRESS: Good Morning America (ABC) with George Stephanopoulos; Univision TV with Jorge Ramos; ABC/FOX Montana TV; Podcast with Al Franken; February 13, 2021 – Global – 107,800,000/2,400,000; USA – 27,300,000/479,200 • Trump acquitted by the spineless GOP Senators. However, 7 GOP Senators did vote for conviction. Sorry day for our country. Trump still has them in his grip. February 14, 2021 – Global – 108,200,000/2,400,000; USA – 27,400,000/482,500 Cases continue to come down. People like Mike Osterholm are saying that we will inevitably have yet again another surge due to B.1.1.7 that will become dominant. I do not necessarily believe that this will be the case. I believe that if we double down on public health measures and continue to push vaccinations, we do not necessarily have to experience a surge. Having said that, WE MUST BE PREPARED FOR A SURGE. PRESS: ABC “The Week” with George Stephanopoulos February 15, 2021 – Global – 108,600,000/2,400,000; USA – 27,500,000/484.000 Down to 68,000 cases yesterday! Did Zoom call with Winnie Byanyima (Exec Dir. Of UNAIDS) together with Regan Hofmann. Winnie was very grateful for my leadership in COBID-19 and HIV/AIDS. We discussed the importance of having a global effort (hopefully led by USA) to get the world vaccinated against COVID-19. Winnie was excited about the fact that I mentioned the loosening of patents in a recent interview to allow wider availability of COVID-19 vaccines. I promised that I will continue to push the “international and global” agenda. I mentioned that we would need to get things under better control in the USA before we would be able to generate interest in global issues. PRESS: Telemundo HOY DIA TV; NBC Local TV Doreen Genzler; NPR (Daniel Estrin): The Coronavirus Crisis Fauci Awarded $1 Million Israeli Prize For 'Speaking Truth To Power' Amid Pandemic February 16, 2021 – Global – 108,800,000/2,400,000; USA – 27,500,000/485,100 Cases continue to come down globally: Media trying to show discrepancies in the Biden team response. CDC and Walensky under criticism for their recent guidelines for opening schools since they are really quite confusing. They say open the schools but the guidelines show that 85-90% of the country is in the “red” zone and therefore, should hold off on opening. I believe that this is typical CDC confusion and lack of clear crisp guidelines no matter who is CDC Director. Also, the are pitting (a little) what I am saying against what VP Harris is saying. VP saying that we have to “start from scratch” in the vaccine roll out and I have been saying that some things were done well such as the mechanism for shipping vaccines. I reconcile this by saying that the mechanisms for getting doses into people’s arms were in bad shape when the Biden team came in. The press are accepting this. Briefed (together with Francis Collins, Rochelle, and Janet Woodcock) the House and Senate Caucuses on COVID-19 variants PRESS: CNN with Jim Sciutto; LA Times TV; NPR – “Science Friday” with Ira Flatow; New York Post: Everything you need to know about Fauci-ing, the new COVID dating trend By Emily Jacobs February 17, 2021 – Global – 109,200,000/2,400,000; USA – 27,600,000/486,400 Cases continue to plummet: Columbus Citizens Foundation's Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Scholarship - Created For Graduate Students In Medical And Public Health Fields - Now Accepting Applicants • Did Fireside Chat with AME Reid Temple Church (Maryland) – Pastor Mark Whitlock • Did podcast “Pod Save America” with Jon Favreau • Did podcast with James Hildreth from Meharry Medical College PRESS: CBS This Morning with Gayle King and Tony Dokoupil; Online TV interview with Clive Cookson (Editor, Financial Times) for the UK Science Museum event; White House Press Conference on the usual MWF schedule; CNN “360” with Anderson Cooper. February 18, 2021- Global – 109,600,000/2,400,000; USA – 27,700,000/489,100 Big Ice-storm in Washington DC and major ice storms and snow over southwest (Texas) with several deaths. Currently heavy snow in NYC and Boston Cases continue to drop Briefed President Biden today in Oval (Virtually). I briefed him on pediatric vaccine trials and mentioned that we likely will have high school children (13-17 yo) vaccinated by mid-Fall, but it would take until Q1 of 2022 to get the trials done and approval for elementary school children (6 to 12 yo). He asked good questions but he rambled a bit, seemingly repeating things that he had said a few minutes previously. • Did really fun “Fireside Chat” with Karl-Anthony Towns (All-Star NBA Player – Rookie of the Year in 2015-2016) and “Dominicans on the Hill”. He had COVID-19 and` his mother died of COVID-19. We gave good messages to the Dominican community • Spoke with the PEPVAR group about USA providing $4-5 billion to build plants to produce Moderna mRNA for the world – Peter Staley, James Krellenstein, David Barr, Christian Urrutia, Wafaa El Sadr. I will bring this up to Jeff Zients. PRESS: MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell; Council on Foreign Relations podcast – “Why it Matters”; Interview with Char Koosta News (discussed tribal Vaccine hesitancy with Sam Sandoval); Interview with Times of Israel on my Dan David Prize; Interview with Alice Park of Time Magazine on 1st 100 days of Biden Administration; Did Buzzfeed interview with Dan Vergano on the Fateful March 11, 2020 when we shut down Europe. February 19, 2021 – Global USA Online preprint paper cam out from Israel saying that a single dose of Pfizer mRNA protected well (85% at 15-28 days against symptomatic disease and 72% against symptomatic and asymptomatic disease). 9000 individual study of young and healthy people. We do not know the durability of this protection. I made point at the press conference (see below) that we will stick with the 2 dose since we know from our studies that the 2nd dose increases the response 10fold over the 1st dose. This height of response gives a cushion against the existing variants and also if you have a less-than-optimal response (albeit a good response) to the 1st dose, you may actually “select” for more variants. • Call from Jeff Sachs about the International Monetary Fund (Special Drawing Rights – SDR) and the possibility of a $40-$50 billion dollar program to vaccinate the entire world. He wants me to have a special role. Moe later. • Gave Harvey lecture virtually at Georgetown • Met with Francis C, Carl D, John Martin, and Larry Tabak about the COVID targeted drug development program that I am trying to set up with the $743 million that we put into our total NIH budget request. It will be based in NIAID with Carl as the lead. As usual Francis wants governance to be somewhat under his control. All good. We will get it done. PRESS: Interview with Erin Banco – The Daily Beast; White House Press Conference; ESPN Baseball TV with Buster Olney; interview with Ben Samuels of Haaretz Israel Newspaper (he tried to get me involved with commenting on the policy of Israel and I refused); MSNBC with Joy Reid; February 20, 2021 – Global -110,400,000/2,400,000; USA – 27,800,000/494,000 PRESS: February 21, 2021 – Global – 110,700,000/2,500,000; USA – 27,900,000/499,000 Matt Pottinger’s interview with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. Good summary of history of the early months: https://cbsn.ws/3pGH9tR Mike Osterholm still predicting an “inevitable” massive surge in the Spring. He also is insisting that we can study the 1 dose strategy in time for meaningful results. PRESS: Sunday shows: NBC - Meet the Press with Chuck Todd; FOX Sunday with Chris Wallace; CNN State of the Union with Dana Bash. February 22, 2021 – Global – 111,100,000/2,500,000; USA – 27,900,000/500,000 Reached 500,000 deaths in the USA today!! However, numbers of new cases continue to come down. Will be race between the new variants and our two tools of defense: 1) vaccine; 2) public health measures. Luckily the mRNA vaccines and J & J are good against the B.117 (UK). Even though they are less effective against the B1.531 (RSA) isolate they still likely will protect against hospitalization and death – the J & J definitely does (tested in RSA) and we can extrapolate that the mRNA (not yet tested in RSA) also does. PRESS: The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/dranthony-fauci-had-publicly-disagreetrump-allowed-terrible/ Anthony Fauci exclusive interview: 'When I publicly disagreed with Trump he let terrible things happen' Good Morning America (ABC) with George Stephanopoulos; CBS This Morning with Gayle King and Anthony Mason; PBS “GZERO WORLD” with Ian Bremmer; White House Press Briefing – I outlines therapeutics and the new FDA updated guidelines to companies for handling variants; Fireside Chat with David Rubenstein upon my receiving the 2021 Great Americans Medal from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History; Reuters online TV interview with Julie Steenhuysen; i24 TV News (Israel); Fireside chat with Leon Panetta at his Panetta Institute for Public Policy. February 23, 2021 – Global -111,400,000/2,500,000; USA – 28,000,000/500,000 Had great call with Barbra Streisand. She called my cell at 6:05 PM. She has recently had zoster with lesion on hip/buttock. She has post-zoster neuralgia down her leg, but the primary lesion had healed. She wanted to know if it was OK to get the mRNA vaccine. I told her yes. We then stared discussing life in general. I told her that I work listening to her songs on ALEXA. She really did not know what ALEXA was. I accidentally butt called her later in the evening and she said that she was going to call me anyway since she wanted to know if there was any difference between the Moderna and the Pfizer product. I told her none. I then explained to her more about ALEXA. I brought the phone over to ALEXA and asked to play “Songs by Barbra Streisand”. When the song came on loud and clear, she started laughing and absolutely loved it! PRESS: Yahoo News Interview February 24, 2021 – Global – 111,800,000/2,500,000; USA – 28,100,000/501,200 The PBS team is here today filming their documentary. Received the 2021 Larry Foster Award for Integrity in Public Communication from the Arthur W. Page Center (Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications of Pennsylvania State University PRESS: February 25, 2021 – Global – 112,200,000/2,500,000 USA – 28,000,000/503,600 Cases continue to come down, but yesterday was 1st day that cases actually started to back up a little. Could be artifact. Variants gaining much attention. The B1.427/429 in California is spreading in CA and seems to be somewhat more transmissible. The new B.1. 526 in NYC is also troublesome and spreading. Issue with J & J. VRBPAC will meet on Feb. 26 (tomorrow). Big Day at the White House - Met with POTUS and VPOTUS in the Oval office for our weekly briefing on COVID. In Oval with us was Jeff Z, Natalie Q; on screen weas Rochelle and Marcella. I presented the options for the upcoming ruling on J & J for EUA. Data on >60 WITH comorbidities doers not look good. Overall USA efficacy 72%. I also described the Moderna efforts to do with NIAID Phase 1 trials with a boost to previously vaccinated and prime/boost for previously not vaccinated people using the B.1.531 (South African variant). Then went with the POTUS and VPOTUS to South Court auditorium to watch NIH OMS nurse Elizabeth Galloway administer mRNA (Moderna) to 4 volunteers to celebrate before a packed press the 50 millionth vaccine within 37 days of Biden Presidency Then went to do PSAs with the White House digital Comms team. They all wanted selfies with me. Had 5:00PM call with Janet Woodcock, Francis Collins, John Mascola, Cliff lane, Peter Marks, and we decided that it would be best to recommend and EUA for people younger that 60 years old because the >60 years with co-morbidities had only a 42% efficacy. Had 6:30 PM talk led by Bechara Choucar and including me, Rochelle and Marcella at the request of Jeff Z to discuss what two vaccinated people can do together. We were getting criticism that we were not using common sense to tell people that they can now relax a bit and enjoy each other. Example I give in being able to hug Jenny now that we are both vaccinated. Th right wing crazies at FOX have been criticizing me for not recommending loosening up. I have true to not get ahead of the CDC sine I feel stringy that two vaccinated people can act together like there is no outbreak. However, in society, this would be different. My point is that the risk is very small and each person should evaluate the level of risk they are willing to take to start getting back to normal. I will give my professional judgment while we are waiting for the CDC to come out with some guidance. I will be on all the Sunday Shows this weekend and this is what I will say. Rochelle agrees and says that the CDC will be coming out with some professional judgment guidelines soon. E-mail from Leon Panetta: From: Panetta Institute <info@panettainstitute.org> Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2021 8:15 PM To: Conrad, Patricia (NIH/NIAID) [E] <conradpa@niaid.nih.gov> Subject: From Leon E. Panetta to Anthony Fauci Dr. Anthony Fauci Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases c/o Patricia Conrad conradpa@niaid.nih.gov Dear Tony: Sylvia and I want to express our deepest thanks for your generous participation in our Lecture Series. We broke a record with over 1,400 attendees and received a number of compliments on your performance. One of our friends – a former Trump supporter – said “I’ve changed my mind – Fauci is a good guy!” Of course, he too is Italian. We look forward to one day taking you and your wife to a great Italian restaurant whether in Washington or here in Monterey. Either way, we are deeply grateful for your kindness and service to our nation. Regards, Leon LEP:sb PRESS: Today Show (NBC) with Savannah Guthrie; Newsweek interview with Jack Dutton (British); CBSN Interactive with Tanya Rivero; CNN with Chris Cuomo From Axios: 21 mins ago - Health "This is a race": Fauci urges Americans to take whatever COVID vaccine is available Sarah Mucha Good summary of the year: A year after Trump said coronavirus was ‘under control,’ a look back at the first news stories President Donald Trump at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on March 6, 2020. (Alex Brandon/AP) By Philip Bump at 9:36 p.m. UTC February 26, 2021 – Global – 112,600,000/2,500,000; USA – 28,200,000/506,800 Cases continue to fall however we're paying considerable attention to the possibility of surges associated with the variants. Of note, Pfizer is planning to do a boost at about six months in order to increase the level of neutralizing antibodies that could cover indirectly the variants. OK put together a zoom meeting for me to talk to members of the RED organization to discuss the global aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were people from all over the world whom I did not recognize but several of them were apparently famous artists and entertainers. One of them was Larry Gagosian who is a very famous art dealer. The tone of the discussion and the questions was the importance of a global response to a global pandemic. In this regard I stressed, and they totally resonated with me, the importance of making vaccine available to the entire world since an outbreak in any part of the world is threatening to every part of the world. There was some nice warm interchange between Bono and I at the beginning of the discussion and throughout. He mentioned that his son has started a rock band and since his son has asthma they called the band the inhalers. Unfortunate and sad situation – Received a call from Tony DiNovi, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Regis High School, that Father Dan LaHart has been removed indefinitely from the Presidency of Regis High School. Apparently, he was involved in sexual impropriety with adult male members of the Regis community. There is also an issue of alcohol abuse. He is currently secluded in a treatment center. Tony called me because the story will likely be in the New York Times on Monday and the press might be calling me since it is widely known that I am strongly connected with Regis PRESS: We had the usual White House press conference on the Monday , Wednesday, Friday schedule; CBS 60 Minutes PLUS (taped); MSNBC Town Hall with Joy Reid. February 27, 2021 – Global – 113,200,000/2,500,000; USA – 28,300,000/509,000 Had good conversation with Ashish Jha. He is a good guy and he wants to understand much better why I am insisting on a single dose of the vaccine rather than adhering to what others are suggesting about giving all one doses and then worrying about the second dose three months later in order to protect as many vulnerable people as one can. I explained to him our strategy that the major concern is the evolution of mutations (variants) that would not be covered by a less than optimal level of neutralizing antibody. We know that when we look at the in vitro data the variants diminish the efficacy of the vaccine-induced antibodies; however, the high levels of antibodies induced by the 2nd dose give some degree of protection (cushion) even against the mutants. Therefore. we are concerned that if we only give first doses and we wait three months or more to give the second dose that variants may dominate and infect the suboptimally protected people. In addition, a suboptimum level of response could actually select for mutants. In addition, there was no reason why we cannot dramatically increase the administration of doses together with the markedly increased availability of vaccine such that we can have our cake and eat it, namely, we can give a lot more first doses at the same time as we keep up with the second doses. We really need the CDC or another organization to model that. I will explain this all to Ron Klain on Sunday. I had an important conversation today led by Janet Woodcock and Peter Marks of the FDA about the J & J EUA. Also on the call were Francis Collins, Cliff Lane, and Rochelle Walensky.The subject matter was that their advisory committee (VRBAP) for consideration for an EUA for the J & J product (Ad26). The committee unanimously and strongly recommended an unqualified EUA even though the data for elderly individuals older than 60 years old with comorbidities was 42%. However, there were not enough data points to be able to make a definitive statement that there is a significant diminution of efficacy in that subgroup. Janet and Peter are very concerned since they wanted the recommendation to be that the EUA would involve people younger than 60 years old. Apparently, the AC IP will go along with that recommendation. Rochelle and I in our conversation with Jeff Zients had decided that when asked by the press we would say that this is an excellent vaccine equivalent to the other two. It might become problematic if the press focuses on that group older than 60 years old with comorbidities. The fact is that the numbers are so low that you cannot say anything about the subgroup analysis. Janet and Peter will face the press tonight. We help them to get a consistent message with ours. This is critical since I will be on four of the Sunday talk shows tomorrow. Throughout the late afternoon I was on several calls with Jeff Z who kept on checking with Ron Klain regarding what the right approach would be when asked on TV about what people who had both doses of vaccine could do with each other such as having a dinner with family and a few guests all of whom were vaccinated. Ron was quite concerned that I not go too far out on a limb and say that vaccinated people can safely interact with unvaccinated people in a household setting. Ron was also concerned about the issue a vaccinated people interacting with unvaccinated children. Finally after many calls going back and forth between me and Jeff and then between Jeff and Ron and back to me again we decided to have a 3 way call among Jeff, Ron, and me. We worked it out such that I will say that I am comfortable with adults in a small gathering within the home not wearing masks as long as everyone was vaccinated. Importantly, I would stay that the CDC would be coming out with recommendations in the next couple of weeks. PRESS: On Saturday Night Live played by Kate McKinnon: Pop Culture SNL dreams up a Fauci-hosted game show where contestants vie for the vaccine Travis M. Andrews at 12:51 a.m. EST February 28, 2021 (Sunday) – Global – 113,500,000/2,500,000; USA - 28,400,000/510,800 Big topic on the Sunday shows (see below) was the EUA Issued by the FDA for the Johnson and Johnson adeno virus vaccine. Also, there is concern that I expressed about easing up on prevention modalities since the decreasing slope up infections is starting to show signs of plateauing. On Face the Nation( see below) Margaret Brennan showed a clip of me being portrayed on Saturday Night Live by Kate McKinnon. Also, the governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem said that I was almost always wrong. She claims that the most important parameter of how well you are doing is how you maintain hospital capacity. When Margaret play that clip I was kind to the governor by saying different states do different things and in different ways, whereas I might have pointed out that her state has the most deaths per capita by COVID-19 than any other state in the country. Got a call from Jeff that Anita Dunn saw me on all the shows and said that I was fabulous. Flattening of decline concerning. We shall see what happens in the coming days and weeks. Had zoom call today with Ron Klain arranged by Jeff an included me Bechara, Marcela, Rochelle, Natalie, and others. The main topic was whether we should stick with our strategy of two doses in the usual time frame or switch to one dose and extend the interval by a couple of months before giving the second dose. Ron is concerned that in November we will be criticized for having let a few million people who would have been vaccinated remain UN vaccinated because we wanted to give two doses to everyone. I was the main explainer emphasizing that the second dose gives a much higher titer of antibody that will address at least partially the inevitable evolution of variants including those from California and importantly the B.1.526. Ron did not want to tell us what to do but he wanted to make sure that we seriously considered both alternatives and were comfortable without decision to stick with two doses on the regular regiment. The ACIP recommended to CDC to implement the EUA for the J & J vaccine. Now the CDC needs to recommend the distribution and we can start distributing 4,000,000 doses almost immediately and then we will have 20 million by the end of March and a total of 100,000,000 by the end of June PRESS: Was on 4 Sunday talk shows: ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos; CNN State of the Union with Dana Bash; CBS Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan; NBC Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. March 1, 2021 – Global – 113,800,000/2,500,000; USA – 28,400,000/512,000 • We did our weekly briefing of Principals – Cabinet members and deputies • Did a podcast with the New Jersey Council of Churches PRESS: NPR Radio 1A; Podcast with Kai Kuperschmidt (Science Magazine) on HIV versus COVID-19 vaccines; White House Press Conference (Routine 3x/week);Satellite Radio Tour for Native Americans; Podcast with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (David Cohen); March 2, 2021 – Global – 114,100,000/2,500,000; USA – 28,500,000/513,100 Still coming down, but the slope is changing: Participated in the University of Edinburgh “Futures Conversations” Chaired by Professor Peter Mathieson (Vice-Chancellor, University of Edinburgh) and involving a conversation between me and Professor Nanshan Zhong (China) and Sheila Tlou (former Minister of Health of Botswana) on the global impact of COVID-19. We spoke about global solidarity for vaccine equity. Also, spoke about the variants. Also, spoke about the approach that China took with the outbreak, i.e. complete lockdown Call from Larry Horowitz. Nancy Pelosi is angry about the fact that J & J is being equated with the mRNA vaccines since she has seen the data about the people >60 yo with co-morbidities. Also, she does not like the 72% versus 94-95% for mRNA. She is taking her annoyance out on the medical team (she has not PRESS: Podcast with Kai Kuperschmdt (follow-up from yesterday0; Seattle Gay News interview; Interview for Pritzer Forum/Chicago Council; Hispanicize PSA taping (Paola Ramos); Telemundo 52 Los Angeles; In Washington Post (see below) Fauci: U.S. must stick with two-shot strategy for Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna vaccines Delaying a second dose to inoculate more Americans creates risks, infectious-disease expert says By Dan Diamond March 1, 2021 at 8:38 p.m. EST March 3, 2021 – Global – 114,400,000/2,500,000; USA – 28,500,000/515,300 Still plateauing: Note that Europe cases are going up. They are using the 1 dose of vaccine approach: Governors of Texas and Mississippi withdraw all public health measures such as masking and not doing indoor dining. I and Rochelle and Biden on TV saying that this is risky and illadvised. NEWS CLIPPING — NBC NEWS — CONDENSED (1 SOURCE PAGE) “PRESS: BBC Scotland Morning Radio Show; Black News Channel with Kelly Wright; Brandeis Webinar with Atul Gawande and Elizabeth Rosenthal; Town Hall with United Food and Commercial Worker Union; CNN with Erin Burnett; My prediction,…” March 4, 2021 – Global – 115,000,000/2,600,000; USA – 28,600,000/517,200 Continuing to plateau: Governors of Texas and Mississippi are pulling back on all public health guidelines such as masks (removing the mask mandate), physical distance, crowds. Press slamming them for thisand Rochelle and I are being asked about this on every media hit. Had very good discussion with Dr. Soren Brostrom, Director General of the Danish Health Authority Danish representative on the WHO Executive Board AND Lone Dencker Wisborg, Danish Ambassador to USA on Global Health matters and potential collaboration between USA and Denmark in global health security and pandemic preparedness. Also met with Congressman Espaillat regarding variant B.1.526 in his district in NYC. Had back and forth with Jeff and Rochelle regarding the guidelines that CDC is preparing on what people who are vaccinated can and cannot do. Jeff Wants to make sure that I am comfortable with the guidelines. I looked at them in the usual manner the CDC had too many qualifying statements in there that were necessary. Jeff had a problem with putting a vaccinated person in the same room with a person who is not vaccinated and not using masks. I convinced him that we should assume the very small risk and if the person who is not vaccinated is of low risk, then one does not have to wear a mask. Jeff was very sensitive in not having the White House interfere and so he went along with my suggestion that actually agreed with the CDC, except for the fact that they were not precise in their wording can I edited their document some what. The bottom line is that we would say that two vaccinated people can be indoors together in a home setting without masks or physical distancing. In the home setting, where one person is vaccinated and the other person is not, the vaccinated person has a minimal risk and attention should be paid to the risk of the unvaccinated person. If the person who was not vaccinated is of a low risk then they can do away with masks and can be together. If the person who was not vaccinated is of high risk of severe disease then the vaccinated person needs to wear a mask. I worked with Rochelle and returned the document to her.Let us see how it ultimately turns out I received the AmFAR “Award of Courage” on a virtual Gala tonight. The award presented to me (recorded) by Julia Roberts PRESS: MSNBC “Morning Joe” with Joe Scarborough, Mike Brzezinski, and Willie Geist; Interviewed with Alexis Papachelas of Greek Kathimerini Newspaper; WTOP with Mike Murillo (Online and Radio); NPR with Rob Stein; Town Hall with Blue Star Families; CNN “The Lead” with Jake Tapper; CBS Newspath with Jon LaPook; NBC with Lester Holt – doing special of last photos that people took before the Pandemic struck. I showed photo and gave interview about that 2019 Christmas Eve dinner at my sister’s home; Interview with The Atlantic with James Hamblin on COVID-19 epidemiology March 5, 2021 – Global -115,300,000/2,600,000; USA – 28,600,000/519,100 Plateau maintaining: Briefed POTUS and VPOTUS virtually. He was in Oval. I was at NIH. I explained about variants and how the “cushion” of antibodies provided by the 2nd dose of vaccine give considerable protection against severe disease PRESS: Black News Channel Morning Show (TV); Time video regarding Sesame Street; Washington Post interview regarding vaccine hesitancy (Online TV); 2 PSA with Gloria Estaban and Carolina Sandoval; White House press conference; March 6, 2021 – Global – 115,700,000/2,600,000; USA – 28,700,000/521,300 Had pre-brief with the WH comms team (Courtney Rowe, Ben Wakana, Kate Berner, Mariel Saez, Ian Sams, etc for my appearance on Face the Nation tomorrow (Sunday). 7day average is not exactly plateauing, it is just flattening a bit: GOP at the local level are trying to pass laws that suppress minority voters such as saying that you cannot give food to people who are waiting in line for hours to vote. This disproportionately affects African American voters. PRESS: MSNBC with Tiffany Cross; March 7, 2021 – Global – 116,100,000/2,600,000; USA – 28,800,000/523,000 Status of vaccines in USA from Monica Ghandi: The intensity of both my popularity and of the hate that the far right have of me increases: Fauci.pdf PRESS: CBS “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan March 8, 2021 – Global 116,500,000/2,600,000; USA – 28,800,000/524,000 Plateau starting to come down” Had a very nice and informative discussion with the minister of foreign affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bisera Turkovic. She is in a very difficult situation in that she was promised vaccine from CoVAX; however, they have not come through on their promise. Therefore, she is asking me as a trusted person for suggestions on how she might address the outbreak in her own country. As of February 22, 2021 there have been 128,000 cases and 5000 deaths in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I could not help her very much except to encourage her to have her people continue to wear masks and observe appropriate public health measures. I also suggested to her that she tried to make a deal with the Russians to try to get some of their vaccine. I also suggested that are possible long range solutions to try and get some of the surplus vaccine that would be left over after the USA vaccinated its entire population. She was very grateful for the discussion. Was on panel with President Clinto Chair) for a discussion of the shortage of oxygen in the LMIC. Also there were: Joy Phumapi and John Nkgengasong • Received the Tufts University Presidential Medal and did a Zoom Q and A with the Dean of the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts PRESS: Interview with Sarah Owermohle for Politico; White House Press Conference; Axios interview about March 11 – with Naomi Shavin; Fireside Chat with National league of Cities; Fireside Chat with Tufts University Dean of Tisch Colege on the occasion of receiving the Presidential Medal; CBS New Radio, Los Angeles interviewed together with L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti March 9, 2021 Global – 116,900,000/2,600,000; USA – 28,900,000/525,000 Oops! See below. Likely a fluke: • Had a very nice virtual ceremony inducting me as a Honorary Fellow into the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland by its President Dr. Mary Horgan. Bill Powderly (Washington University of St. Louis) connected us. Mary had taken an infectious Diseases fellowship at Wash U. • Did Fireside Chat with Paul Kelly (Chief medical Officer of Australia) on the differences between COVID-19 in USA and Australia. Sponsored by CSIS (Steve Morrison and Katherine Bliss) PRESS: NPR “All Things Considered” with Mary Louise Kelly (done together with Francis Collins); VICE TV Documentary Taping; Gray TV Special with Greta Van Susteren; Did podcast with Tom Inglesby from Hopkins; March 10, 2021 – Global – 117,300-,000/2,600,000; USA – 29,000,000/526,200 Had a very moving tribute to me upon the receipt of the Yale University School of Management “Legend in Leadership” Award from the Chief Executive Leadership Institute. Moving comments by Albert Bourla (Pfizer), Alex Gorsky (J & J). PRESS: CNN “New Day” with John Berman; Interview with Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post; Instagram with Eugenio Derbez (Mexican-American entertainer) Historical comparison of the vaccine efforts of Trump versus Biden in NY Times article by Sharon La Franiere: Biden Got the Vaccine Rollout Humming, With Trump’s Help Trump administration officials grumble that they laid the groundwork for surging vaccinations, but some hard work in the trenches has helped pick up the pace of production. See link below: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/us/politics/biden-coronavirus-vaccine.html March 11, 2021 – Global -117,800/2,600,000; USA – 29,100,000/527,700 Had Zoom with Jeff and the team to go over the POTUS speech for tonight to commemorate the 1 year anniversary from the time (March 11, 2020) when the WHO declared this a pandemic of global health concern and we shut down travel from Europe. This was a big day for me 1 year ago – (go back to notes of March 11, 2020). Also, I have been pushing with Jeff and Rochelle to have the CDC be a bit less “risk averse” in their recommendations of what a person can do once they are fully vaccinated. The CDC really needs to step up and give recommendations for travel, workplace, houses of worship. They are dragging their feet. I am gently coaching Rochelle to go by her own instincts and not always yielding to the rigidity of the career CDC staff. • Had Zoom call with Gov. Dan McKee of Rhode Island asking advice about the next few weeks and his plans for the state PRESS: NBC “This Morning” with Savannah Guthrie; ABC “Good Morning America” with George Stephanopoulos; ESPN “First Take” TV with Max Kellerman, Stephen A. Smith, and Molly Qerim Rose (discussed my 5 favorite athletes); Podcast (“We Can Do This”) with Robin Roberts; CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell; Filmed Stephen Colbert for tomorrow night; MSNBC – Rachel Maddow March 12, 2021 – Global - USA Still plateauing: Briefed the Principals for our weekly briefing. I showed the replication cycle of SARS-CoV-2 and the vulnerable targets for direct anti-viral therapy David Kessler together with Rick Levin (formerly of Yale) made a proposal to provide through the congress 5 billion to me and NIAID to decide how we wanted to put together a “vaccine manufacturing plan that would involve everything from the fundamental research going into pandemic preparedness to the actual manufacturing of 300,000,000 doses of vaccine per year. This is an extraordinary offer then I will have to sit down with my team particularly John Mascola who was on the call with us to determine what aspect of this multifaceted plan that David proposed would be owned by us here at NIAID versus what we would give to HHS/ASPR/BARDA. I asked John to think about a team that we could put together in the beginning of the week to come back to David with a plan. Obviously, we will have to go 2 Francis Collins and thoroughly briefed him and get his buy in. PRESS: Zoom interview with Spike Lee for a documentary that he is filming; Politico by Sarah Owermohle and Erin Banco Fauci takes on a new role: Biden’s Covid whisperer Few others cast as long a shadow as Fauci — who over the last year has given America a crash course in epidemiology — especially with top health posts vacant. March 13, 2021 Global – 118,800,000/2,600,000; USA – 29,200,000/530,700 PRESS: Filmed with Mark Manucci for PBS March 14, 2021 – Global – 119,200,000/2,600,000; USA – 29,200,000/531,800 PRESS: NBC “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd; CNN State of the Union” with Jake Tapper; Fox News with Chris Wallace; Gray TV “Full Court Press” with Greta Van Susteren March 15, 2021 – Global – 119,600,000/2,600,000; USA -29,300,000/532,400 Got call tonight from Larry Horowitz saying that Drew Weissman and his collaborator are planning to hold a press conference to discuss their studies in mice showing that an intramuscular injection of the mRNA vaccine leads to an immune response in the amniotic fluid of the pups in a pregnancy model. The FDA has already received the DART (Development and Reproductive Toxicology) studies from Moderna and Pfizer. According to Emily these studies were clean. The FDA has heard about the Weissman studies and feels that they are invalid. The two companies also feel that the studies are invalid. However, we cannot blow them off for obvious reasons. Even if the Weissman studies prove to be invalid, the fact that they are holding a press conference is going to create a huge mess. Hopefully, we can get this sorted out and have a repeat of studies to counter this finding. More later. Jeff Zients has heard about this and called me tonight at 9:30 PM. I told him we have to get the FDA out their showing that they have DART studies and explaining what their studies showed. Cases coming down: Yet Europe is seeing an upswing of cases resulting mostly from B.1.1.1.7: Today I received on a virtual zoom the Ivan Alan Award for Social Courage given by Georgia Tech University and it's President doctor Angel Cabrera. There was a video about my accomplishments and Rochelle Walensky joined us to celebrate the award. Rochelle was very generous in calling me her hero, her mentor, and her friend. I should point out at this point that Rochelle has become closer and closer to me in our very collegial relationship. In addition, I should point out that I have been getting a number of awards and prizes that I had not even documented in these notes. It is a shame that things are moving so quickly that I don't even have time to savor for a moment the many awards that I have been getting. PRESS: Did White House Press briefing today with Rochelle and Andy; March 16, 2021 – Global – 120,000,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,300,000/533,100 I took the led in pushing Janet Woodcock (FDA) and Rochelle Walensky (CDC) to make sure that all their ducks were in order. In fact, Janet checked and both Pfizer and Moderna had clean DART studies on record and CDC was following closely 2000 vaccinated pregnant women from a cohort of 31,000 and no red flags. All good so far. Participated in a very nice function at the National Cathedral where Francis Collins and I and Eliseo Perez-Stable gave brief remarks to various ministers from surrounding counties such as Montgomery, Arlington, Fairfax, District of Columbia, and others. The purpose was to have these African American pastors get publicly vaccinated in the cathedral so that their constituents would follow. It was one of many outreach efforts that Francis and I and others have been doing over the past months to stimulate interest in getting vaccinated. Summary of vaccines below: PRESS: MSNBC “Morning Joe” with Joe Scarborough; ABC “GMA3” with Jen Ashton; Wall Street Journal – CEO Council with John Bussey; Podcast with The Economist; National Cathedral Function with Press March 17, 2021 – Global – 120,400,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,400,000/534,100 Testified before the House Energy and Commerce Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee chaired by Diana De Gette (D-CO) with ranking member Morgan Griffith (R- VA). Good hearing with the usual snarkiness from David McKinley (R-WV) and Gary Palmer (R-AL). Several question centered around the GOP angry because the Dems are not giving Trump enough credit for the vaccine. It is reflecting what Trump has been saying to the media. Pres. Joe Biden sent me a thank you letter: Letter from president Joe Biden PRESS: NBC Late Show with Seth Meyers; White House Press Conference March 18, 2021 – Global – 120,900,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,400,000/535,200 Testified before the Senate HELP Committee chaired by Sen. Patty Murray (D_WA) and ranking Minority Richard Burr (R-NC). I had my typical fight with Sen. Rand Paul who insisted that masks were pure theater. I blew him away. After the Hearing, I briefed the POTUS and VPOTUS on Building Vaccine Confidence. Present virtually – me, Andy Slavitt, Marcella Nunez-Smith, and Courtney Rowe. In the Oval – Jeff, Natalie Quillian, Anita Dunn. Had call with Jeff, David K. Natalie, Anne Schuchat regarding alarming increase in NYC of B.1.526. Anne will call Zucker to suggest strongly to shut down bars and restaurants. We are afraid of a surge that we had expected since NYC tends to follow Europe, which is surging now following a plateau. SA giving vaccine to Canada and Mexico. For Mexico it is a quid pro quo to control immigration at the border. Also, AstraZeneca continues to mess up on their examination of data with the DSMB. They have shown extreme incompetence throughout this entire affair with mixing up clinical trial data in the UK to not having equity demographically in their USA trial PRESS: NBC “Today” with Savannah Guthrie; Did short TV hots with local stations in Alabama, Louisiana; North Carolina; South Carolina; CNN with Chris Cuomo March 19, 2021 – Global USA Still flattening. General worry about surge while several states are pulling back on mask mandates and other public health measures: PRESS: CBS “This Morning” with Gayle King; Snapchats with White House Comms; MSNBC “All In” with Chris Hayes March 20, 2021 – Global – 122,000,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,600,000/538,300 Had our newly established Saturday AM meeting with the medical team led by Jeff Zients to go over important issues. I brought up for the first time the issue of having Biden lead an effort to allow LMICs to produce their own vaccine. This could be a legacy issue for him similar to what George WQ. Buch did with PEPFAR. Cases starting to come up after the plateau: PRESS: NBC “Today Weekend” with Kristen Welker and Peter Alexander; March 21, 2021 – Global USA Still flat or slightly increased: While Europe continues to surge: And Brazil follows: March 22, 2021 – Global -123,000,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,700,000/540,000 Trump has been attacking me (and Deb Birx) in recent interviews on FOX News and “the Hill” (see below) saying that we were wrong most of the time. However, he actually says that I am a nice guy and he likes me. Big semi-scandal! AstraZeneca again messed up. Today was the day when they announced the data of their phase three clinical trial of a covid vaccine. The data showed a 78.9% efficacy with good efficacy against severe disease. They put out a press conference and press release and we followed with a press release that mirrored their release. As it turns out the data and safety monitoring board, which was getting impatient with them and was having trouble with their submission from the beginning, send them a harsh letter also addressed to me indicating that the data in their press release was not the most recent data an actually made the data looked more favorable. When the White House found out about this, it triggered a series of zoom calls with the comms team of the White House (Courtney Rowe et al) led by Jeff Zients. the final decision was that we would put out a press statement from NIAID in the middle of the night urging AZ to come clean with the DSMB and to straighten out their press release. See below the letter from the DSMB to me and AZ as well as our press release. final Concern over AZ press release.pdf NIAID Statement on AstraZeneca Vaccine Late Monday, the Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) notified NIAID, BARDA, and AstraZeneca that it was concerned by information released by AstraZeneca on initial data from its COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial. The DSMB expressed concern that AstraZeneca may have included outdated information from that trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data. We urge the company to work with the DSMB to review the efficacy data and ensure the most accurate, up-to-date efficacy data be made public as quickly as possible. Authorization and guidelines for use of the vaccine in the United States will be determined by the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after thorough review of the data by independent advisory committees. PRESS: White House Press briefing – I presented the AZ results – 78.9% effective and 100% effective against sever disease – 0 in vaccine; 5 in placebo; BBC Radio World News; The Hill: Trump says Fauci 'a promoter more than anything' BY JUSTINE COLEMAN - 03/22/21 09:18 AM EDT 621 March 23, 2021 – Global -123,400,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,700,000/540,500 Did Governor’s Association call and gave them an update. Was introduced by Governor Cuomo who bragged about my New York City roots and that I am Italian-American. Did a Fireside Chat with the Forum of Small States – 100 of the smaller nations of the world. It was very enjoyable and they were totally appreciative of me and many said how popular I was in their country. The Irish Ambassador said I was “beloved in Ireland”. PRESS: ABC - Good Morning America with Robin Roberts; much press calls associated with the AZ issue described above; Entravision interview with Tsi-Tsi-Ki Felix from Univision; many print interviews related to the AZ issue (see above) Politico: Fauci: AstraZeneca needs to 'straighten out' vaccine data March 24, 2021 – Global -123,900,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,800,000/541,300 • Moncef Slaoui fired from GSK Board of Directors for sexual harassment charges dating back a few years • AZ continues to mess up on everything they seem to do. Hopefully, we will bring their miscommunication to an end as they finalize their discussions with the DSMB. • Got a call from Tom Frieden today about 2 issues: 1) Tom wants to know how I feel about working with Moderna in getting them to give up some intellectual property so that we can get vaccine to the developing world . He wants to see if I have a relationship with Moderna. If so, he would like to help with seeing if we can get Moderna to cooperate in building plants in the developing world to provide vaccine. Tom is going to send me some talking points that I might bring to Jeff Zients so that I do not go rogue on this without letting the administration know. 2) Tom is quite concerned that there is no decision yet on the commissioner of the Food and Drug administration. He is very much in favor of Josh Scharfstein over Janet Woodcock. He is trying to figure out ways to get the administration to seriously consider Josh. Apparently Ron Klain is concerned that Josh would have trouble getting confirmed by the Senate. Tom thinks that this is not an issue. PRESS: White House Press Briefing – most questions still about the AZ situation; Town Hall on Sirius XM “Rock the Bells” with LLCoolJ – guests – me, Marcella Nunez-Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff; ENTERTAINMENT 03/24/2021 07:45 am ET Dana Carvey Goes Full ‘Godfather’ With Hilarious Dr. Anthony Fauci Impression “She was having sex with Dr. Anthony Fauci, now she’s banging a f**king star.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dana-carvey-anthony-fauci n 605b174dc5b66d30c74022cc The Brooch Is Back, Baby “These days, better than a tweet,” as one stylist put it. • • • • • • March 25, 2021 – Global - 124,200,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,800,000/543,000 After a Zoom meeting yesterday with the DSMB Chaired by Rich Whitley, it became clear that they are furious with AZ since they feel that the AZ people are “pathological liars”. It is a shame, because their vaccine is really a good vaccine; however, with their dishonest actions, they are casting discredit on the vaccine. Continues to plateau amid concerns for surge. Spring break is at hand. Variants in the USA: The plateau continues: PRESS: Bloomberg podcast; Podcast “Just Getting Started” with Rich Eisen; March 26, 2021 – Global – 125,200,000/2,700,000; USA – 29,900,000/544,000 Have continued to make virtual rounds on patients at the clinical center. I have not been indicating it in these notes; however, I have been regularly going to rounds at least once per week and occasionally two times per week. I want to make sure that I do not lose contact with what is going on in the trenches both with HIV and with COVID-19. Cases creeping up……. PRESS: White House Press Conference – I introduced the college campus transmission study (Larry Corey); March 27, 2021 – Global -125,800,000/2,800,000; USA – 29,900,000/545,300 PRESS: ABC – Good Morning America (Weekend); March 28, 2021 Global USA Going in the wrong direction: PRESS: CBS – Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan; Viewing of the Sanjay Gupta piece on CNN of the “6 doctors”; March 29, 2021 – Global – 126,900,000/2,800,000; USA – 30,100,000/546,700 • Considerable commenting rom the press about the Sanjay Gupta Special last night on the “6 Doctors” where me, Birx, redfield, Hahn, Giroir, and Kadlec were interviewed. I cam out fine, but the press criticized the rest , particularly Birx, Redfield and Hahn for using the interviews to try to rehabilitate their reputations that suffered by their performance during the Trump administration where they did not speak up against the misinformation from Trump (see below under “Press”) • Briefed the POTUS and VPOTUS on our usual weekly briefing. • President Trump lashed back in response to the CNN Special last night and wildly criticized Deb and I even making up stories that I bad-mouthed Deb all the time. He is truly an obnoxious adolescent. Below is his statement: – March 29, 2021 – Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America Based on their interviews, I felt it was time to speak up about Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned. They had bad policy decisions that would have left our country open to China and others, closed to reopening our economy, and years away from an approved vaccine—putting millions of lives at risk. We developed American vaccines by an American President in record time, nine months, which is saving the entire world. We bought billions of dollars of these vaccines on a calculated bet that they would work, perhaps the most important bet in the history of the world. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx moved far too slowly, and if it were up to them we’d currently be locked in our basements as our country suffered through a financial depression. Families, and children in particular, would be suffering the mental strains of this disaster like never before. In a fake interview last night on CNN, Dr. Fauci, who said he was an athlete in college but couldn’t throw a baseball even close to home plate, it was a “roller,” tried to take credit for the vaccine, when in fact he said it would take three to five years, and probably longer, to have it approved. Dr. Fauci was incapable of pressing the FDA to move it through faster. I was the one to get it done, and even the fake news media knows and reports this. Dr. Fauci is also the king of “flip-flops” and moving the goalposts to make himself look as good as possible. He fought me so hard because he wanted to keep our country open to countries like China. I closed it against his strong recommendation, which saved many lives. Dr. Fauci also said we didn’t need to wear masks, then a few months later he said we needed to wear masks, and now, two or three of them. Fauci spent U.S. money on the Wuhan lab in China—and we now know how that worked out. Dr. Birx is a proven liar with very little credibility left. Many of her recommendations were viewed as “pseudo-science,” and Dr. Fauci would always talk negatively about her and, in fact, would ask not to be in the same room with her. The States who followed her lead, like California, had worse outcomes on Covid, and ruined the lives of countless children because they couldn’t go to school, ruined many businesses, and an untold number of Americans who were killed by the lockdowns themselves. Dr. Birx was a terrible medical advisor, which is why I seldom followed her advice. Her motto should be “Do as I say, not as I do.” Who can forget when Dr. Birx gave a huge mandate to the people of our Nation to not travel, and then traveled a great distance to see her family for Thanksgiving—only to have them call the police and turn her in? She then, embarrassingly for her, resigned. Finally, Dr. Birx says she can’t hear very well, but I can. There was no “very difficult” phone call, other than Dr. Birx’s policies that would have led us directly into a COVID caused depression. She was a very negative voice who didn’t have the right answers. Time has proven me correct. I only kept Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx on because they worked for the U.S. government for so long—they are like a bad habit! Hospitalizations in people <65 years old: NEWS CLIPPING — WASHINGTON POST — CONDENSED (1 SOURCE PAGE) “PRESS: Had a “Roll Up Your Sleeves” chat for a PSA with Matthew McConaughey; MSNBC – Meg Tirrell; Washington Post: Feuds, fibs and finger-pointing: Trump officials say coronavirus response was worse than known 'That’s what…” March 29, 2021 at 8:09 a.m. EDT March 30, 2021 – Global USA I remain close to Deb Birx and she still communicates with me about he observations of how things are going. Below is an e-mail she sent me this morning: Testing rates continue to drop reaching under July levels despite substantial increase in number of test and testing supplies available. "Surveillance testing" or testing for this silent spread is so critical. The original rising test positivity in 18-24 is now 25-44 and rising. This is how all the prior surges occurred - due to vaccination level the fatalities maybe be less and the risk to the health system maybe less but the potential for significant increases in morbidity and long term impact of COVID 19 will be most evident in these age groups. Simply repeating the same public health messages without tailoring to specific age groups on specific media platforms where the message will be heard will not have the impact we need at this moment. Please take care of yourself. Deb Trump furious and being inarticulate in responding to our appearance on CNN Special. He is still talking about my errant pitch on opening day last year. He is rambling on. Meadows and Navarro are attacking me on FOX News. Navarro calling me a pathologic liar and calling the virus the “Fauci Virus’. The Trump team is really acting like a bunch of idiots. Peter Navarro being delusional again: Peter Navarro Slams Dr. Fauci: Virus Came From ‘Building’ He Built • Had Zoom meeting with Brazilian Minister of Health Dr. Marcello Queiroga. They need help from the USA because they are having a terrible problem and President Bolsonaro is very Trump-like and hurting the country with his approach. I offered to help by collaborating in research and discussing strategies. They really want vaccine from us, but the USA policy is that we will wait until we vaccinate our whole country before we give away excess vaccines. Unfortunately, that is all that I could offer them. They will get plenty of vaccine from Pfizer, AZ and J & J in late May and early June. After the zoom meeting, I received a note from one of their scientists – Dr. Jorge Kalil. He asked me to please help them and hang in their with them sine Bolonsaro in terrible and the Brazilian scientific community and Brazilian people hold me in high regard and they need me to stick up for them • Had Zoom meeting with Marshawn Lynch former running back for the Seattle Seahawks. Really interesting. A lot of street talk. It was actually a “PSA” for vaccinating African Americans • Had Zoom with D.L. Hughley – famous entertainer - another interesting chat on his show about African Americans and CVID vaccinations • WHO Report is out saying that it is “very unlikely” that the virus originated from a lab accident. There is concern that the Chinese had a lot of influence over what data the WHO group had access to PRESS: Did interview with Phil Rucker about his book on the Trump response to COVIDTrump lashes out at Fauci and Birx after CNN Politico: documentary The former president released a fact-challenged statement criticizing the former advisers after they criticized his administration’s pandemic response. Health Fauci and others look ahead to the holidays: Put another leaf in the table (QuickHoney for The Washington Post) By Marlene Cimons March 27, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. EDT March 31, 2021 – Global – 127,900,000/2,800,000; USA – 30,200,000/548,200 Still flat or inching up: • Had my every other week call with Chris Whitty and Patrick Valance of the UK. They are as concerned as we are about the potential for another surge. They are waiting on ordered doses of vaccine. • Did nice interview with Nick News for Children answering their questions about vaccines. • Did interview with Ricky Martin scheduled for Latin Grammy awards. Asked questions about vaccines. • I have been praising David Ho to the White House people regarding his studies of the variants. On that basis they are now probing whether he might be a good choice for FDA Commissioner. Source Dr M Gandhi UCSF: • PRESS:WJLA TV – discussed Nats baseball season; CNN with Chris Cuomo; Morning Joe’ Trashes Fox News Host for Allowing Navarro’s Unhinged Fauci Rant: ‘That’s Fireable’ April 1, 2021 – Global – 128,500,000/2,800,000; USA – 30,300,000/549,100 The Trump people including Meadows, Navarro and several other minor figures are going on a rampage on FOX news attacking me. Navarro calling me a psychopath and pathologic liar and Meadows blaming me for not weighing in on Children at the border. Amazing!!! Other news media are criticizing them strongly for doing this. • Had nice Fireside Chat with American Red Cross – Gail McGovern (CEO). The comments on the chat box were uniformly positive • Had a Zoom with Prize-winning artist Hugo Crosthwaite and Taina Caragol of the National Portrait Gallery. Taina will be commissioning Hugo to do a portrait of me for the National Portrait Gallery Collection. The whole process will take about 1 year. • Majorie Taylor Greene is trying to introduce legislation to fire me. Really!!!!: • Marjorie Taylor Greene: Fire Fauci and ban vaccine mandate and passport by Paul Bedard, Washington Secrets Columnist | PRESS: CBS This Morning with Gayle King; WXYZ TV Detroit; FOX L.A. TV “The Issue Is” with Elex Michaelson; NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt; NATs Podcast with Al Galdi and Mark Zuckerman. April 2, 2021 – Global – 129,3000,000/2,800,000; USA – 30,400,000/550,200 • Had nice Fireside Chat with Rep. Doris Matsui. • Am still being attacked by the far right wing including Senators (Lindsey Graham) and media (FOX). Interesting that they are asking me to explain the “crisis” at the border when that has nothing to do with me. • Had great interview with Neal Cavuto of FOX (see below under “Press”) in which he allowed me to counter all of the criticisms of people like Mark Meadows, Lindsey Graham, Navarro, etc. Navarro is calling me a pathological liar saying that I had nothing to do with the vaccine. He said this in response to my saying that one of the best choicesI made was to push ahead with Barney Graham’s collaborationwith Moderna. Obviously, Navarro has no idea about this and so has no idea what he is talking about • Another important issue – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr has written a book about me entitled “The Real Anthony Fauci”, which will almost certainly be a slanderous book. Am undecided about whether I should get lawyers involved PRESS: NPR Morning Edition with Noel King; NBC TV Detroit with Dr. Frank McGeorge; White House Press briefing; Politico Podcast with Jeremy Siegel; Interview with Business Insider; Interview with The Guardian; FOX News with Neal Cavuto. April 3, 2021 – Global – 129,900,000/2,800,000; USA – 30,400,000/552,800 Went to a “Spring celebration” at Bob Seder’s house to observe the Cherry Blossoms at Kenwood. I am a little nervous sine people were hugging and not wearing masks, although virtually everyone had been vaccinated. Still lingering at ~60,000 new infections/day: PRESS: CNN with Jim Acosta; April 4, 2021 – Global – 130,400,000/2,800,000; USA – 30,500,000/553,700 Things getting a bit scary. As B.1.1.7 becomes more dominant, we re seeing surges in some areas with younger people (even school kids) getting infected and hospitalizations increasing in relatively younger people. See below: Race between the vaccines (4 million shots administered yesterday!!!) and a new surge: April 5, 2021 – Global -131,000,000/2,900,000; USA – 30,500,000/554,100 Still putting pressure on me to switch to a single dose. Mike Gerson wrote an amazing column in the Washington Post about me: Opinion: Why tearing down Fauci is essential to the MAGA myth Opinion by Michael Gerson Columnist April 5, 2021 at 4:35 p.m. EDT MAGA political philosophy is not systematic, but it is comprehensive. Right-wing populism offers a distorted lens to view nearly all of life. Through this warped lens, progress toward equal rights is actually the oppression of White people. Free and fair elections, when lost, are actually conspiratorial plots by the ruthless left. But perhaps the most remarkable distortion concerns the MAGA view of covid-19. We have all seen the basic outlines of pandemic reality. Experts in epidemiology warned that the disease would spread through contact or droplets at short distances, which is how it spread. The experts recommended early lockdowns to keep health systems from being overwhelmed, and the lockdowns generally worked. The experts said Americans could influence the spread of the disease by taking basic measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing. The disease was controlled when people did these things. The disease ran rampant when they did not, killing a lot of old and vulnerable people in the process. There were, of course, disagreements along the way about the length of lockdowns and the form of mandates. But on the whole, American citizens have witnessed one of the most dramatic vindications of scientific expertise in our history. We have been healthier when we listened to the experts and sicker when we did not. This is the context in which the MAGA right has chosen to make Anthony S. Fauci — the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 — the villain in their hallucinogenic version of pandemic history. It is worth disclosing when a columnist has a personal connection to a public figure. I have known Fauci since I was in government during the early 2000s and watched him help create the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He is the best of public service: supremely knowledgeable, personally compassionate, completely nonpolitical, tenacious in the pursuit of scientific advancement and resolute in applying such knowledge to human betterment. He has no other ambition or agenda than the health of the country and world. Yet slamming Fauci was a surefire applause line at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. Former Trump administration officials continue to target him. Republican members of Congress vie with one another to put Fauci in his place. For Trump officials, including Donald Trump himself, this makes perfect sense. If Fauci has been right about covid, then playing down the disease, mocking masks, modeling superspreader events, denying death tolls, encouraging anti-mandate militias and recommending quack cures were not particularly helpful. If Fauci has been right, they presided over a deadly debacle. When former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro claims that Fauci is “the father of the actual virus” or former chief of staff Mark Meadows complains about Fauci’s indifference to the (nearly nonexistent) flow of covid across the southern border, the goal is not really to press arguments. It is to create an alternative MAGA reality in which followers are free from the stress of truth — a safe space in which more than half a million people did not die and their leader was not a vicious, incompetent, delusional threat to the health of the nation. Metaphorically (but only barely metaphorically), there is a body on the floor with multiple stab wounds. The Trump administration stands beside it with a bloody knife in its hand. It not only claims to be innocent. It claims there is no blood. There is no body. There is no floor. Congressional Republicans who criticize Fauci to prove their populist manhood are even more pathetic. Their self-abasement is voluntary. Watching Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) debate science with Fauci during committee hearings is like watching Albert Einstein being disputed by his dry cleaner. Fauci is often reduced to making obvious points in a patient voice. Fauci deserves his Presidential Medal of Freedom just for his heroic forbearance. All these critics of Fauci have chosen to attack the citadel of science at its strongest point. With squirt guns. While naked and blowing kazoos. This useless exertion is somehow wrapped in the language of freedom. Freedom from the servitude of a piece of cloth on your face that might save your neighbor’s life. Freedom to light off fireworks below a potential avalanche. Freedom to store uranium in your backyard. Freedom to set fire to a crowded theater. Here is the reality of covid. It is not an easy thing to persuade hundreds of millions of people who feel perfectly healthy to wear masks, socially distance and get a vaccine injected into their arms. Fauci is dedicated to these goals. Anyone who purposely undermines them is a danger to the health and safety of their fellow citizens. Fauci is practicing epidemiology. His critics are practicing idiocy. Both are very good at their chosen work. PRESS: PIX 11 TV – New York City; April 6, 2021 – Global – 131,500,000/2,900,000; USA – 30,600,000/554,400 Had Zoom call with Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca. He wanted to apologize for the miscommunications concerning the interactions between AZ and the DSMB a couple of weeks ago. He wanted my advice as to the best way forward. I explained to him that the most important thing for him to do would be to wait until the United States FDA comes out with their EUA. This would give the AZ product the validity that he is hoping for. I also mentioned that the confusion associated with the mixed up dosing situation associated with the Oxford group added a degree of skepticism about the entire AZ product. Best thing to do is to wait to see but the FDA says about the product. We seem to be stuck at around 60,000 per day: PRESS: ABC - Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos; MSNBC – Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough; National Press Club Interviews; Fox Local TV Stations April 7, 2021 – Global -132,000,000/2,900,000; USA – 30,700,000/555,200 Terrific experience tonight – On my walk tonight with Christine through American University campus, on the way back we were met by throngs of American University students who illegally sitting on the grass enjoying themselves. In groups of three to five people they kept coming up to me wanting to get photographs and selfies. It was truly amazing as it went on for group after group after group. I must have posed for photographs with over 50 young kids from American University. Then, on the way down past Al Dente restaurant where we stopped to pick up a pizza, customers outdoors and inside the restaurant kept coming up to me asking to be photographed with me. My pizza took a long time to be ready and so I must have spent 15 minutes at the door of the restaurant allowing people mostly young kids but some adults to have selfies with me. The entire situation was culminated when I walked out of the restaurant with Andre Jacobs, my security man, and the entire population of people who are eating outdoors at Al Dente and Chef Geoff’s burst into a prolonged round of applause. It was really quite charming. Andre had gotten nervous throughout the entire situation since some people just ran up to me with their camera in their hand to get a selfie. Andre does not like people just running up to me an almost body slammed a man who meant well but who didn't realize that he had charged up to me. A memorable experience! PRESS: CBS “This Morning” with Gayle King; White House Press Conference (I discussed durability of vaccine-induced response; CNN with Anderson Cooper 360; April 8, 2021 – Global -132,700,000/2,900,000; USA – 30,700,000/556,100 Spoke with Olive Shisana and Morena Makhoana (Biovac) about setting up capability to manufacturing mRNA vaccines in South Africa. Olive claims to be the special advisor to President Cyril Ramaphosa of RSA. They want me to help to get Moderna to assist RSA in the form of Makhoana’s company Biovac to make mRNA vaccines for RSA. I taped my NAS remarks receiving their Public Welfare Medal. I spoke of my relationship with 7 Presidents including the difficult relationship with Trump. Met virtually for our regular weekly meeting with the POTUS and VPOTUS. Interesting situation. Marcella has been quite ill with inflammation of her brain stem (acute). She was quite incapacitated but is now improving rapidly on corticosteroids. She actually took the zoom call from her rehabilitation institution. We were joking that the loudspeaker might soon say that visiting hours are over and the president and vice president would hear it over the zoom. In addition Vivek was zooming from Miami and in the middle of the discussion a Peacock outside his window started making noise. What a scene. Daily cases still going up – 74.5 million yesterday: PRESS: RAI Italian TV; France 24 TV Interview New York Times (— Isabel Kershner): Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day with a virtual march and remarks by Dr. Fauci. Held virtually for a second year because of coronavirus restrictions, the event featured recorded remarks by two prominent figures in the battle against the coronavirus: Dr. Albert Bourla, a son of Holocaust survivors who is the chief executive of Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that, together with BioNTech, produced a leading coronavirus vaccine; and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the United States. April 9, 2021 – Global – 133,600,000/2,900,000; USA – 30,800,000/557,100 • Bad day – Chris brought her right arm (distal radius0 playing basketball with me for filming for Nat/Geo. Happened on the last 10 seconds of playing PRESS: Stephen Colbert had a skit about me and “the 4th Wave” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb0fB13xYYg April 10, 2021 – Global – 143,300,000/2,900,000; USA – 30,900,000/558,000 • Spoke again with Ari Emanuel and his team of Don Walker (lawyer, represents Obama and Clinton) and Jay Mandell (Mostly involved with books). They just wanted to check in to see if IU needed anything. I mentioned the situation with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr who is writing a book about me entitled “The Real Dr. Anthony Fauci”, which undoubtably will be a very scandalous book. Don Walker was adamant that we should do nothing about this since Bobby Kennedy has absolutely no credibility over the past several years. because of how crazy he has been acting Over the past several years. His strong recommendation is to just let it go. Don emphasized again how much money that I would be making with my lectures. I re emphasize to him that although I like the idea about making money, my most important goal is to do good , and that I would prefer to do several speeches pro bono depending upon who asks me. • Joan Baez will receive the Kennedy Center Award and there is a reception at the State Department on May 19th. She has invited me as her guest. What fun! Just spoke with her over the phone to check if there will be mask wearing since the press will have a field day if they saw me with Joan and we did not have masks. • We vaccinated 4.6 million people today Daile cases continue to rise – 81,400: A A April 11, 2021 – Global – 135,000,000/2,900,000; USA – 31,000,000/558,800 Sunday -quiet day. Catching up on writing Commencement address. Heard during my interview with MSNBC (see below) that Trump, while on FOX with Laura Ingraham said I was “full of crap” and that he never listened to me. Hasan came back on MSNBC and said that is why hundreds of thousands of people died, because he did not listen to me. Appasrently, Trump also made this comment during a fundraiser at Mar-a-Largo where he sharply attacked 2 people: me and Mitch McConnell. PRESS: MSNBC with Mehdi Hasan; April 12, 2021 – Global USA The Daily Mail in their reporting of the removal of Father Lahart from his position of President of Regis High School made sure to mention that I was an alumnus of the school (of course) (see below under Press. • Had a good Zoom meeting with Hon. Luigi Di Maio, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy. He is in the USA to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Italian relations with USA. Good conversation. He wanted advice of the COVID-19 situation in Italy and Europe. Interesting how these foreign leaders want my opinion on these issues that have policy as well as public health implications. • Got call at 10:00 PM from Rochelle Walensky that the CDC and FDA had called a pause of the J & J vaccine due to 6 cases (all women – ages 18 to 48) of Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis (CVST). I died, 3 hospitalized (2 in ICU), 2 discharged. Events occurred from 6 to 13 days after vaccination. CDC/FDA will do press conference tomorrow at 10:00 AM. PRESS: Daily Mail: Jesuit priest, 59, is removed as president of Manhattan's prestigious Regis High School - that Dr. Fauci attended - for 'non-consensual sexual misconduct with adult subordinates'; BBC radio interview (2 part series) on 40th Anniversary of recognition of AIDS pandemic; BBC - Radio “The Today Programme”; CNN “Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer. I have been speaking about this all the time: April 13, 2021 – Global – 136,200,000/2,900,000; USA – 31,100,000/559,700 Jeff Z. calls me at 5:46 AM telling me to clear my calendar since the WH wants me out there with the press. See below – I engaged in the Jen Psaki Conference in the White House press room with Jeff Z. Obviously, this is a big deal even though it is a very rare event 6 cases in 6,850,000. I was on the Governors call with Rochelle and Jeff to explain the situation to the Governors. PRESS: White House Press Conference with Jen Psaki and Jeff Z.; CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell; NBC Evening News with Lester Holt; ABC Evening News with Linsey Davis; MSNBC with Chris Hayes April 14, 2021 – Global -137,000,000/3,000,000; USA – 31,200,000/560,600 There is a very important issue going on regarding a dispute between the vaccine Research Center an Moderna regarding the inventorship of the patent associated with the confirmation of the spike protein. For some strange reason Moderna wants to give us Co ownership of the patent but not inventorship of the patent. The VRC insists with good reason that we are true inventors of the patent. We had a conversation this morning among Francis Collins , myself , John Mascola, and Mark Rohrbaugh concerning any leverage that we might have over Moderna to pressure them in sharing the expertise of their technology with developing countries particularly in southern Africa. They have made a public statement that they will not interfere with any countries that want to use their technology. However, given the complexity of the technologies it is important that they pitch in and help the companies transfer the technology. Peter Staley and his activist friends are understandably pushing us to exert pressure on Moderna to transfer their technology to the developing world. The reason why the patent issue becomes relevant here is that the more control we have over what Moderna does the better we will be able to pressure them into the above. We decided that the best approach would be for Francis Collins and I to have a telephone call with the CEO of Moderna , Stephane Bancel and the POresident of Moderna, Stephen Hoge. Had call with Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro of the House Appropriations Committee. She wants to know what I think she should do with the $6.5 billion that they want to give to ARPA-H that would go to NIH. There is a fear among NIH grantees that the regular increases that NIH usually receives on a yearly basis will be diminished be 'cause the Congress is now giving the NIH $6.5 billion for “special projects”. They were thinking of giving the NIH $2.5 billion for the regular appropriation plus $6.5 billion for the special projects for a total of $9 billion, which is a lot. I suggested to Rosa that she called some of the money off the $6.5 billion and add it to the regular appropriation for the NIH. She seemed OK with this. I had recently received a letter from senator Lindsey Graham essentially demanding that as the chief medical advisor to president Biden, I go down to the border and look at the difficult health conditions there regarding the SARS coronavirus. Subsequent to that I received a letter from about 8 or 9 congressmen asking me to do the same thing. In fact, in his letter to me senator Graham said I was neglecting my responsibility as the adviser to the president if I did not go down to the border and report back on the “terrible conditions” on the border. This is clearly a set up trying to embarrass the president. Tomorrow I testify before the house Energy and Commerce Select Committee on COVID-19. Two congressmen who signed the letter will be there. I anticipate that they will ask me the same question about going to the border. Today I asked Jeff Zients to ask Ron Klain and the president if it is OK for me to say that since I am the chief medical advisor to the president I would be happy to go to the border if the president ask me to. However, with all due respect I am not the adviser to the Congress but to the president. I will do what he asked me to do, and again with all due respect not what the Congress asks me to do. Ron Klain and the president are OK with this approach. • Got call from Jeff that the Oxford group were coming out with a paper tomorrow saying that in a large data base they found that mRNA vaccinbes had even more thrombosis than AZ. Obviously, bullshit. They did not look for thrombocytopenia and so the observation is invalid. Also, not surprising fr the Oxford group sine their vaccine is in trouble and I would not be surprised if they were trying to disparage the other vaccines. PRESS: MSNBC – “Morning Joe” with Willie Geist; CNN “New Day” with John Berman; NBC “Today” with Savannah Guthrie; White House Press Conference (regular 3x/week). Did 4 separate Local TV hits with Cameron Webb in Mississippi Stations April 15, 2021 – Global – 137,900,000/3,000,000; USA – 31,200,000/561,400 Still hanging around 70,000/day: Major clash with Rep. Jim Jordan during the House Energy and Commerce Select Committee on COVID-19 chaired by Jim Clyburn and Steve Scalise as Ranking Member. Jordan did his usual aggressive asking me multiple questions without giving me a chance to answer. He was harping on my giving him a definite date when he can get his “liberty and freedom back” that I was restricting him from. I insisted that this was not a matter of liberty and freedom, but was a public health issue.We had a heated discussion. I finally told him that he was “ranting”. In addition, I told him that he was making this a personal issue. He denied that, but I insisted that he was indeed making it a personal issue. Finally, when his time was up he kept on talking and representative Maxine Waters told him to shut up. PRESS: All over TV in my clash with Rep. Jordan at the E and C Hearing – CNN covered it extensively and Jimmy Kimmel had it in his monologue; Reuters TV interview with Julie Steenhuysen; Had conversation with member of NY Times editorial board member Jeneen Interlandi about 1 dose versus 2 doses. She seemed to side with me. April 16, 2021 – Global – 138,700,000; USA - • Andy Slavitt remarked how proud of me he was as he watched me respond to Jim Jordan. • Fox News is attacking me abut my interchange with Jordan, BUT MSNBC is attacking FOX for attacking me. Example: • Scarborough slams Jordan for spreading 'lies' about Fauci: 'It's sheer idiocy' • By Cameron Jenkins - 04/16/21 11:38 AM EDT 410 • In the Instagram with Tyra Banks (see below) she was wonderful. People who wrote comments were 95% positive, but some were really mean and vicious statements about me and Tyra. One person said that Tyra was sexy, but I was even more sexy than she was. She read it and put a big smile on her face and said that she agreed with that but then beautifully and gently shot this down by saying: “Dr. Fauci, that is true and my mother is in love with you” . Zing PRESS: Veja Magazine (Brazil) – reporter – Julia Teixeira Braun; Facebook – “Now This” with Zinhie Essamuah; Instagram with Tyra Banks (she was absolutely fabulous); MSNBC “Reid Out” with Joy Reid; April 17, 2021 – Global – 139,500,000/3,000,000; USA – 31,400,000/563,200 Cases continue to creep up in certain states (>35). Had nice dinner over Ellen Sigal’s home with Diana DeGette, Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Dana Bash sent me a text: “I just watched the whole Jordan thing. Again, you’re a better man than I…. As our friend Wolf Blitzer said to me yesterday – no one would have blamed you if you said simply “Mr. Jordan, go f--- yourself” PRESS: Had another of several interviews at home with Mark Manucci for the PBS Masters Documentary April 18, 2021 – Global – 140,300,000/3,000,000; USA – 31,400,000/564,000 • David Axelrod sent me a text saying that his wife Susan says that I look 10 years younger since the change of administrations. • I received a text from Dana Bash pointing out that Vanity Fair recently had a headline that said: Jim Jordan trips over his own asshole trying to debate Anthony Fauci. PRESS: ABC This Week with Martha Raddatz; NBC Meet the Press with Chuck Todd; CBS Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan; CNN State of the Union with Dana Bash; MSNBC The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart; April 19, 2021 – Global – 141,100,000/3,000,000; USA – 31,500,000;564,300 Today is the day (April 19) when the POTUS said that everyone 16 years of age and older is now eligible to receive a vaccine. No more restrictions to priority groups • Kate Berner sent me a note saying that I was “outstanding” at the White House pressor. • I get a lot of FOIA requests regarding my financial statements as well as regarding text messages , written correspondence, and phone calls . These are clearly directed at trying to catch me at something usually from conspiracy theorists but also from Republican operatives. The most recent FOIA requests have been for any text messages between me and Susan Rice, Ron Klain, Anita Dunn, and Kate Bendingfield. The most recent one has come from the Republican National Committee in the person of Nicholas Erickson. Clearly, I have become a prime target of the Trump Republicans • Had great conversation with Amb. Katherine Tai who is the US Trade Representative. The ambassador was extremely excited about partnering with me in trying to get a waver of the patent restrictions for the production of vaccines by the developing nations. She is also very well aware that the important issue is to transfer the technology and the expertise even after the wave it has occurred. I had mentioned to her that I would soon meet with the CEO of moderna to try to get him to cooperate and transferring this technology. We left it that we shall get back together after she does some work on this problem. In the arena of small world things, the ambassador mentioned to me that her mother was a scientist here at NIH and that she is a child was put Into the NIH daycare center. I believe that I will get along very well with her. PRESS: NPR -Morning Edition with Rachel Martin; CBS “This Morning” TV with Tony Dokoupil; Rickey Smiley Radio; Enrique Santos Show (TV); The Morning Hustle Show” (Radio) with Headrack; White House Press Briefing; did loal TV hits in Indianapolis, Jacksonville, FL, and Birmingham, AL; Australian ABC News Radio April 20, 2021 – Global USA Maybe coming down a bit: • I was on the governor’s call today. One of the questions that came up today was why we still have a mask mandate for outdoors. I agree that this is a problem. Rochelle answered that CDC is re-examining this issue. I feel that we should obviously say that if a person is out alone outside, they do not need to wear a mask. • Important issue brought to my attention regarding potential far right wing coming after me. It appears that a few of the far right grantees of NIAID are joining with the radical right wing people in the public as well as people in the Congress such as congressman Jim Jordan and Senator Rand Paul to try and connect me with the virus from WUHAN. In fact, David Morens has heard that these people are trying to “bring me down” .. They are saying that I deliberately worked with the Chinese together with Peter Daszak to create a virus that would be released to the world. This sounds very much like a way-out conspiracy theory, which it is. However, there are enough crazy people around to make this a problem. I am going to arrange for a phone call with David in order to determine more details as to what is going on. It is my suspicion that some of these so-called NIAID grantees are Imperiale and Rich Ebright. They have been complaining about gain of function research for years. They have even publicly made the claim that when they speak against anything that I want I will prevent them from getting their grants. Everybody knows that this is absolutely preposterous, but they in fact are preposterous. Let us see if in fact these are the villains. PRESS: BBC Radio – 2nd installation of a story that BBC is doing on the history of HIV/AIDS; Columbia TV -NTN 24; Instagram with Aidan Galassetti April 21, 2021 – Global USA Cases back up again a bit – 57,000: Had an important call without colleagues in South Africa another southern African countries to discuss the possibility of conducting a clinical trial with the moderna m RNA vaccine. The issue is that they are in desperate need of a vaccine since the AZ vaccine does not work against the variant B.1.351. In addition, the J&J vaccine that appears to do well against the South African variant will not be ready for at least several months and there is a window of opportunity to do a clinical trial with a delayed placebo crossover on 14,000 people. The issue is that the South Africans particularly Glenda Gray and Linda GAIL Becker need to show that the mRNA vaccine is effective in South Africa particularly among persons living with HIV. David Kessler who will be key in getting the product to South Africa was on the zoom. I feel that this is definitely worthwhile doing since if we can prove that the mRNA vaccine works in South Africa, then Glenda feels that they can convince the African countries to make a major investment in buying the mRNA vaccine. On the phone call were the following : Glenda Gray, Linda-Gail Bekker, Philip Kotze, Mike Chirenje, Tulio de Oliveira, Larry Corey, David Kessler, Emilio Emini, Cliff Lane, John Mascola, Carl Dieffenbach, Emily Erbelding, among others. Beautiful situation of my impact on an autistic child. See attachment: 399065 Kirkland #2 corr.pdf • I presented nomination of Barney Graham to NAS Section 44. Bob Gallo made a random and completely unnecessary potentially negative comment about Barney while presenting another candidate (Ray Schinazi) Hello, my name is Nicholas Wilson and I am a senior at Arizona State University studying history, Political science, and education. This year has been tough, but I got the vaccine. I wanted to thank Dr Fauci for all his hard work and to commemorate this modern marvel I got a tattoo. I hope you enjoy. PRESS: Hispanic TV hits: Despierta America; Actualidad Radio – Juan Gomez and Roberto Rodriguez (South Florida); CNN Newsroom with Victor Blackwell; NBC TV – Dallas with Julie Fine; April 22, 2021- Global USA Note the difference in mask mandates between the red and blue states: • I participated in an iPC meeting today chaired by Beth Cameron of the National Security Council. The purpose of the meeting was to figure out how we could ask for $30 billion for pandemic preparedness and put it into the American Jobs Plan bill. The NIH had put in a proposal through HHS of close to $30 billion for our needs alone. There appears to have been some confusion as to the fact that HHS did not send down our request to the NSC in time for inclusion in the NSC document that was being discussed at the meeting. This led to a lot of running around on my part and on the part of Francis Collins and Larry Tabak to figure out how we can get our request properly represented in the discussion. It seemed to have worked out OK as I together with Eric Lander made a presentation to the IPC that indicated the broad scope of our needs without necessarily mentioning the budget. It was one of those times where you walk in the morning and find out that you have to do something that nobody told you about until one hour before you had to do it. I refer to my need to make a presentation on behalf of the NIH to the IPC. • • Did a Fireside chat with the American College of Physicians. The chat was chaired by Dorilyn Moyer. In addition, I was presented with the 2021 Boyle award from the American College of Physicians. To illustrate how flooded I am with things , I had no idea I was being awarded the Joseph F. Boyle award and I had to make comments accepting the award. I had to quickly scramble to get Kim to go on the Internet and find out just what the Joseph F. Boyle award is. As it turns out it is an award bestowed upon a current or former government official who has provided outstanding public service to improving the delivery of health care. Again, I am running at such an amazingly fast pace that I do not know what I am about to do until I sit in front of the zoom and do it. • Met by Zoom with POTUS and VPOTUS for our regular weekly update. PRESS: KSNV- TV – Las Vegas with Jeff Gillian; KABC - TV – Los Angeles with Denise Dador; KCBS Radio – San Francisco with Mike DeWald April 23, 2021 – Global – 144,400,000/3,100,000; USA – 31,700,000/567,400 Still plateauing, but the 7-day average is slightly down (~10%): Presented before the Lasker Board with Elia Zerhouni, Peggy Hamburg, Al Reese, Joe Goldstein and I mentioned when they said I was their hero, that I was also a “target” for some. They immediately said “We have you back”. Important in light of the antipathy of many against me. PRESS: White House Press Conference; Online – TV - The Birmingham News; Huntsville Times and Mobile Press-Register with Ivana Hrynkiw; MSNBC with Ayman Mohyeldin; PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff; MSNBC Town Hall with Alicia Mendez and Rep. Raul Ruiz April 24, 2021 – Global – 145,200,000/3,100,000; USA – 31,800,000/568,200 Real crazy anti-Fauci stuff going on. Two authors named Steve Deace and Todd Erzen wrote a book about me entitled “Faucian Bargain” - The most powerful and dangerous bureaucrat in American history. It is a cheap paperback of 179 pages which I will not even read but it contains the same sort of nonsense that the other conspiracy theorists have been saying about me. It is really getting worse and worse in the number of crazy people who are buying into this conspiracy theory and so now we have the book by Robert F Kennedy junior and this book by these two guys as well as a number of right wing columnists such as Josh Rogin , as well as multiple commentators on Fox News who spend much of their time making me out to be the worst villain in the world and or trying to discredit me. Had important meeting with Jeff Zients, David Kessler, Francis Collins, Car Dieffenbach, Natalie Quillian, Dina Halme, Lauren …. To discuss the $3.15 billion for the COVID-19 antiviral program. There was considerable concern on our part that we would not be getting the full amount of money for this very important program to develop antiviral drugs for COVID-19. Omb has indicated that they may use some of that money for the purchase of booster doses for the vaccine program. We called this meeting together in order to get Jeff to support the fact that this is an incredibly important program for the current and future pandemics. Carl describe the program very well and I believe that we have convinced Jeff to strongly support us. See below power for a detailed description with slides: We still are doing pretty well against the current variants with regard to our vaccines; Eric Topol’s take on Variants: India is exploding with cases with the new variant B.1.617 (see below): We have a serious problem of optics regarding our not sending to needy countries any of the AZ doses of vaccine at the same time as we have a greatest supply than demand right now. There is growing sentiment throughout the developing world at the United states is being unethical and amoral in not giving away doses of vaccine from AZ that we know we will never use. This is particularly the case with India that is really exploding with infections. The are now having >300,000 infections per day. One can say that you cannot do this since AZ has only been approved under an EUA. However, there are certainly ways that we can get around this. The bottom line is that we are looking very bad in the eyes of the low and middle income countries. I will continue to bring this up to Jeff Zients and other leadership. In fairness to our position, we do not really have a lot of doses of AZ vaccine hang around unused. Novovax does not come online until around June, and so the argument that we want to secure enough doses for ourselves including boosters can be defensible. Unquestionably, this is a very difficult situation. Amazing, but Vivek called me right after I wrote this with the same feeling as expressed above. We tried to get a meeting with Vivek, me, Rochelle, and Jeff to discuss how we are going to handle the situation with regard to India , particularly on the Sunday TV shows that Vivek and I will be on tomorrow. Unfortunately, Jeff could not squeeze in a meeting. PRESS: Huffington Post: Anthony Fauci Delivers Short, Sharp Shutdown Of GOP Senator’s Vaccine Doubt Bluster April 25, 2021 – Global - 146,100,000/3,100,000; USA – 31,800,000/569,000 We had an important zoom talk at 11:00 AM today with Jeff, me, Rochelle, Natalie, and Vivek regarding our response to the crisis in India. See above. Jeff is sensitive to our concerns and indicated that Jake Sullivan in NSC is already involved in sending materials to India including filters for vaccine production, oxygen supplies, ventilators, therapeutics such as remdesivir and favipiravir, sedation meds, test kits, and PPE. I brought up the fact that the real issue is sending our doses of the AZ vaccine that we now have on the shelf. The issue is that we keep saying that we will do this when we are confident that we will be able to vaccinate all Americans. However, this is somewhat contradictory since we have already publicly said that we have enough vaccine from Moderna and Pfizer to vaccinate everyone in the country who needs to be vaccinated. And so, it is clear that we're not going two need the AZ vaccine. Thus, why not send it off to India and other countries as soon as possible? Jeff and Natalie agreed and we will push this agenda soon. Release today! - National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke by phone today with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, expressing deep sympathy for the people of India following the recent spike in COVID-19 cases. Mr. Sullivan affirmed America’s solidarity with India, the two countries with the greatest number of COVID-19 cases in the world. Building on the seven-decade health partnership between the United States and India —including battles against smallpox, polio, and HIV — they resolved that India and the United States will continue to fight the global COVID-19 pandemic together. Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, the United States is determined to help India in its time of need. To this end, the United States is working around the clock to deploy available resources and supplies. The United States has identified sources of specific raw material urgently required for Indian manufacture of the Covishield vaccine that will immediately be made available for India. To help treat COVID-19 patients and protect front-line health workers in India, the United States has identified supplies of therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that will immediately be made available for India. The United States also is pursuing options to provide oxygen generation and related supplies on an urgent basis. The U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is funding a substantial expansion of manufacturing capability for BioE, the vaccine manufacturer in India, enabling BioE to ramp up to produce at least 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2022. Additionally, the United States is deploying an expert team of public health advisors from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and USAID to work in close collaboration with the U.S. Embassy, India’s health ministries, and India’s Epidemic Intelligence Service staff. USAID will also quickly work with CDC to support and fast-track the mobilization of emergency resources available to India through the Global Fund. I had an important zoom meeting today with Larry Corey an Emilio Emini about the same subject as above , namely, how the United states can play a major proactive role in getting mRNA vaccines to the developing world. In our discussion, it became clear that there are immediate needs as mentioned above; however, there is also the immediate need of getting vaccine doses to lower and middle income countries. The United states could exert leadership in pressuring Moderna and Pfizer to scale up their vaccine production and sell it two developing nations at cost for production which is approximately $6 per dose as compared to the $30 produced that we are currently paying here in the developed world. Apparently there are liability issues that the pharmaceutical companies are concerned with. These revolve around the fact that although the United States government can indemnify the companies against lawsuits here in the United states the companies feel that they are liable to being sued for adverse outcomes by people in the countries to whom they're providing vaccine. Some mechanism needs to be worked out to address this concern. I have asked Emilio and Larry to put a one pager together summarizing our discussion so that I can bring it to Jeff who could bring it to Ron Klain who could bring it to the president. More later. Breakthrough infections are very rare: NEWS CLIPPING — WASHINGTON POST — CONDENSED (3 SOURCE PAGES) “Front page of the Washington Post had a major article on the drastic situation in India and reported on the universal criticism there is of the United states in not doing something about it right…” He’s generally cautious, and the people constructing scorecards of his correct and incorrect predictions disingenuously conflate him with Oscar-pool contestants placing bets on best supporting actress. Fauci wasn’t making wagers, wasn’t saying sooths. He was giving his best educated guesses, based on what was knowable at that juncture. His guesses evolved as his — and our — education improved. Informed guidance like his is better than no guidance at all, and information isn’t static. Over three and a half decades as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci, now 80, has advised and earned the trust of Republican and Democratic presidents. He managed somehow to correct Trump and yet not be replaced with a sycophant who would have fed the former president’s delusions and further endangered Americans’ lives. That’s more than public service. That’s magic. And he was thanked for it with death threats, issued not just to him but also to his family, and with a piece of mail that, when he opened it, sprayed an unidentified white powder all over him. He sat there covered in it while a hazardous materials team swept in. “My wife and my children were more disturbed than I was,” he told The Times’s Donald McNeil in an interview in January. “I looked at it somewhat fatalistically. It had to be one of three things: A hoax. Or anthrax, which meant I’d have to go on Cipro for a month. Or if it was ricin, I was dead, so bye-bye.” Why didn’t he say bye-bye to this awful role and the nonstop vitriol, given how much he’d contributed to the country from the AIDS epidemic onward and given that most 80-year-olds like him are taking it just a tad easier? “I always felt that if I did walk away, the skunk at the picnic would no longer be at the picnic,” he told McNeil, referring to his ability to challenge the happy talk of Trump administration officials who wanted simply to wish the coronavirus away. “Even if I wasn’t very effective in changing everybody’s minds, the idea that they knew that nonsense could not be spouted without my pushing back on it, I felt was important. I think in the big picture, I felt it would be better for the country.” He felt correctly. That assessment would be self-aggrandizing only if it weren’t true, just as his many media interviews would smack of preening if there weren’t such clear educational purpose to them. The key to his temperament — and to the greater measure of humility than of hubris in it — lies in how, even now, he talks about Trump. Although Fauci has ample cause for venom, there’s little trace of it in his words. He faults Trump without mocking him. That shows a discipline that’s rare. I never achieved it. Sure, Fauci won a $1 million prize, but he didn’t agitate for it, and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that during many points over the years, he could have left government for the private sector, traded on his stature and connections, and become an exponentially wealthier man. He refrained from that as surely as he has from the pettiness that most of the rest of us can’t resist. “He has no other ambition or agenda than the health of the country and world,” wrote the Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, who, as a senior official in the George W. Bush administration, became acquainted with Fauci. I understand — and personally feel — any American’s frustrations with the continued caveats regarding masks and gatherings and such. But it’s Fauci’s mandate to urge the safest possible behavior. I understand how maddening it can be to get different answers at different times. But uncertainty is the nature of this beast. I don’t understand the rage at a remarkable public servant, and I’ll let Gerson have the last words on that. “Fauci is practicing epidemiology,” he wrote. “His critics are practicing idiocy. Both are very good at their chosen work.” April 26, 2021 – Global – 146,800,000/3,100,000; USA – 31,900,000/569,300 I had an interesting conversation with Vivek late last night. He called me up after we had a meeting with Jeff and the medical team concerning the guidelines that the CDC was about to put out regarding the wearing of masks outdoors as well as indoors in vaccinated versus unvaccinated people. Vivek was concerned about something that I had been concerned about for a long period of time. That is the CDC often puts things out that none of us can really adequately defend because it is either unclear or just does not make any sense. This is exactly what happened last night when Rochelle presented a color-coded guideline that no one could really understand . Yet, the CDC was about to put it out. To her credit, Rochelle ran it by the medical team. Rochelle is in a difficult position since she is new in the job and is reluctant the contradict her team which has been in place for decades. That is really the fundamental problem of the CDC. For as long as anyone can remember they are isolated in Atlanta, are extremely arrogant, and are offended if anyone on the outside asks to see their material before they actually put it out. They are very close-to-the-vest. I have known this for some time as have my colleagues here at NIH. However, it is interesting and in some respects gratifying that Vivek has now picked that up on his own and fully realizes the problem. • Did Town Hall with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health led by Sam Baker of Axios and included Mary Bassett, Karen DeSalvo, Garth Graham, and Michael Mina • Did Principal’s meeting with Cabinet. Had a wonderful zoom session with President Obama - I was on a zoom one on one discussion with President Obama for the purpose of encouraging people to get vaccinated. He was his typical engaging and highly intelligent self. Similar to what my experience was when he was in the White House, he had a perfect grasp of all of the details surrounding vaccines. It just reminded me of what an incredible person he is and what an amazing president he was. We joked around a lot about what I had gone through over the last year. I even mentioned to him that during an interview with some of the sports reporters I had mentioned that if I went one on one with him in basketball even though he is very tall and has a great jump shot, I still would be able to dribble around him since I'm so fast. He started to laugh and said that I better stop talking trash to him because now he's mad and if we ever get to play together he'll block every one of my shots. The interview was really a terrific experience. PRESS: Newsy TV Interview with Kellan Howell; NBC TV interview with Lester Holt for the Aspen Institute Online; April 27, 2021 – Global – 147,500,000/3,100,000; USA – 31,900,000/569,800 Coming down. 2nd day in a row in the 30s: PRESS: Sanjay Gupta podcast; IAS Podcast on 40 years of HIV; White House Press Conference (spoke on variants); WTOP Radio with Megan Cloherty; NY Times Editorial Board; NPR – “All Things Considered” with Mary Louise Kelly; Windy City Times interview – 40 years of HIV; Interview for Research!America with Opray Winfrey; MSNBC with Chris Hayes; April 28, 2021 – Global -148,300,000/3,100.000; USA – 32,000,000/570,400 Letter to Dr. Collins from Republican Congressmen Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Brett Guthrie, and Morgan Griffith asking many questions about the origin of SRAS-Cov-2. Clearly trying to dig up dirt and implicate the NIH in collaborating with the Chinese leading somehow (???) to the release or escape of SARS-CoV-2 from the Wuhan lab: SKM_C754e2104280 6490.pdf I am starting to put much more pressure publicly on pushing for a global response to the pandemic by urging us to help low and middle income countries with focus now on Indias. See today’s Washington Post: Covid-19 live updatesGlobal pandemic needs a more global response, Fauci says, amid record-breaking deaths in India Latest: How to access the risks of returning to the gym The Fauci “thing” is as thick as ever: • Francis and I were on a Zoom call with Stephane Bancell (CEO of Moderna) and Stephen Hose (President of Moderna). We discussed two things: the fact that we felt that Moderna should be doing more to provide vaccine for low and middle income countries. We wanted them to help out by transferring their technology two nations such as Senegal , Ethiopia, and countries in South America in order to allow those countries to make vaccines for themselves. They felt that this is something that they would likely do but that it would take at least two years for those countries to stand up their plants even if the technology was transferred. Their idea was a two-pronged approach. First, they are ramping up their capability of producing vaccine and by the end of 2022 they feel that they will be able to produce a total of 3 billion doses. They would be happy to make those doses available at a lower tiered price to the developing world. In addition, they agreed that they would participate in a longer range plan to transfer technology 2 low and middle income countries to make their own vaccine. In addition, Frances and I spoke about the patent dispute between the NIAID Vaccine Research Center and Moderna. The story is that the lawyers of Moderna feel that the VRC people such as Barney Graham an others technically should not be inventors on the patent for the discovery of the vaccine. We strongly disagree with that an as a matter of fact so do Stephane and Stephen. they realize that it is unfair to exclude us from the patent; also it would be a public relations disaster for them if they excluded us. They promised that they would get this resolved soon. It is clear that Pfizer can do the same thing. In fact, Pfizer can likely produce 3 billion doses by the end of this year and even more next year . If this is possible which I believe that it is, then we could probably vaccinate the entire world that wants to be vaccinated within the next year and a half. PRESS: NBC “Today” with Savannah Guthrie; CNN with Jim Sciutto; Vaccines Appear to Wall Street Journal – Robbie Whelan - Be Slowing Spread of Covid-19 Infections With more than 37% of U.S. adults fully vaccinated, Anthony Fauci expects case numbers to drop significantly April 29, 2021 – Global -149,200,000/3,100,000; USA – 32,000,000/571,300 MMWR: Linked Clusters of SARS-CoV-2 Variant B.1.351 — Maryland, January–February 2021 Back up again to 53,000/day: • Did a zoom podcast interview with Quinn Bradlee (son of Sally Quinn and the late Ben Bradlee). He is disabled and Sally asked me to do this. I could not refuse since I admired Ben so much and he was always so gracious and kind to Chris and me. He was so excited to have the opportunity to interview me. Important Issue: Francis Collins forwarded an email to me (see below )which triggered a concern about whether the Indian variant – B.1.617 was resistant two antibodies induced by vaccines. I forwarded this email to the medical team including Jeff Zients and Rochelle Walensky. Rochelle called me up and mentioned that her colleagues in Boston including those at the Broad Institute as well as Dan Barouch were finding that the Indian variant could be very problematic with regard to its resistance to vaccine induced antibodies. In addition, I spoke with Bob Seder and the work that he has been doing with monkeys also indicates that B.1.617 could be very problematic. Then, Jeff Zients called me up together with Natalie Quillian and feels that we should call a temporary halt on travel from India until we sought this out and based on the information that I sent him. This is a critical decision since if we don't block travel from India and things look bad later on we will be sharply criticized for not doing so. However , if we do block travel, there will be those who criticize us for doing so. This is very similar to the deliberations that we had during the Trump administration regarding China, the Eu and the UK. SEE E-MAILS BELOW starting with the e-mail that I sent to the medical team of Walensky, Vivek, Bechara, Slavitt, Zients, Nunez-Smith. (Rochelle subsequently forwarded it to Dawn O’Connell at HHS) Team: Please see e-mail below from Dr. Venkatachalam to Francis Collins. Although this is still at the level of anecdote, I am hearing from people who are doing studies in vitro that the B.1.617 variant is at least as concerning as the B.1.351. We should discuss this at our next meeting. Best, Tony Anthony S. Fauci, MD Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Building 31, Room 7A-03 31 Center Drive, MSC 2520 National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD 20892-2520 Phone: (301) 496-2263 FAX: (301) 496-4409 E-mail: afauci@niaid.nih.gov The information in this e-mail and any of its attachments is confidential and may contain sensitive information. It should not be used by anyone who is not the original intended recipient. If you have received this e-mail in error please inform the sender and delete it from your mailbox or any other storage devices. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) shall not accept liability for any statements made that are the sender's own and not expressly made on behalf of the NIAID by one of its representatives. From: Collins, Francis (NIH/OD) [E] <collinsf@od.nih.gov> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2021 5:56 AM To: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov>; Lane, Cliff (NIH/NIAID) [E] <clane@niaid.nih.gov>; Mascola, John (NIH/VRC) [E] <jmascola@mail.nih.gov>; Erbelding, Emily (NIH/NIAID) [E] <emily.erbelding@nih.gov>; Wholley, David (FNIH) [T] <dwholley@fnih.org>; Menetski, Joseph (FNIH) [T] <jmenetski@fnih.org> Subject: FW: Concerning news about the B.1.617 variant from India and your view More concerns about B.1.617 and the effectiveness of vaccines. From: Venkatachalam, Sundar (NIH/NCI) [E] <sundar.venkatachalam@nih.gov> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2021 4:53 AM To: Collins, Francis (NIH/OD) [E] <collinsf@od.nih.gov> Subject: Concerning news about the B.1.617 variant from India and your view Dear Dr. Collins, I hope this message finds you and your family well. I wanted to bring to your attention about a public health like message circulating among the Indian diaspora in the New Jersey area. Apparently, parents visiting from India who tested negative before their flight in India have come down with Covid (the message claims it is the B.1.617 variant from India) after 10 days. They have also visited a variety of get togethers, temples before the symptoms arose. This variant was detected in the Bay Area earlier this month and the CNBC article quotes Dr. Pinsky from Stanford saying that the variant may be a challenge. More concerning is the news from a friend of mine from Texas who says that two IT professionals who had both their shots in the US were visiting India to take care of their parents (infected with Covid). Unfortunately, the vaccinated IT professionals have died of Covid. He has promised to provide details as I have been skeptic of social media posts without backing. NPR also had a story yesterday that said 37 vaccinated doctors in Delhi have come down with Covid in New Delhi but did not say anything about their condition. As you already know that the daily caseload reported in India during the past 4-5 days has been ~200 to 300K and is probably closer to half a million or a million given the infrastructure and access to health. Even as early as last year I have suspected the numbers from India were being manipulated (see attached PDF) while looking at the Worldometer Covid update site. Sadly, I am speaking of the country I was born in and grew up- but cannot relate to or understand her values anymore. I was wondering if we are running the risk of another wave of infection in the US as hundreds (if not thousands) are flying between the US and India daily. I see that ~30% of the US population is fully vaccinated as of today and 43% have received a single shot -an enormous success by any rate in this short period. However, is it a risk, as we relax the guidelines in the US while allowing new variants enter and circulate in the community with more than half the population yet to be vaccinated? We have come this far and I really hope this sad episode does not repeat again. Sadly, there are folks within and outside our country who are waiting to use any opportunity to blame NIH/science and our president. I have lost sleep thinking of it since I saw the news circulating and thought that you or Dr. Fauci could provide an answer. I apologize for this long email. Sincerely, Sundar Sundar Venkatachalam, Ph.D. Chief, Preclinical Therapeutics Grants Branch Developmental Therapeutics Program Division of Cancer Treatment & Diagnosis National Cancer Institute sundarv@nih.gov BioNTech chief confident Covid jab will work on variant found in India VISIT TO BALTIMORE WITH VP HARRIS - Today I went to Baltimore at the invitation of Vice President Harris to accompany her to the M&T Bank stadium where the Baltimore Ravens football team plays. The stadium has served as a mega hub and mass vaccination site for the administration of vaccines in the city of Baltimore. It was a delightful trip strengthening my relationship with the vice president. She was her usual delightful self and as we walked through multiple sections of the indoor component of the stadium, we passed hundreds of people: people waiting to be vaccinated by the hundreds; people already vaccinated being observed; national guard who are helping with the vaccinations; and a wide array of sections of people vaccinating , entering information into a computer, and a pharmacy dispensing the vaccine. As we walked through the different sections people equally screamed out “we love you Doctor Fauci” and “we love you Vice President Harris. We stopped dozens of times to take selfies with a whole variety of people. The vice president was genuinely pleased to see the attention paid to me as well as to her. She is a real winner. PRESS: NBC interview with Heid Przybyla on the role of the VP in outreach to promote the uptake of vaccines; Italian TV La7 News; much press related to the visit to the VP to Baltimore. Joe Rogan walks back anti-vaccination Axios - comments April 30, 2021 - Global – 150,100,000/3,200,000; USA - 32,100,000/572,200 We shut down travel from India – See above. Travel from India will cease for all non-USA citizens. Will start on Tuesday May 4. I am concerned that by delaying the actual shutting down we will be faced with the same situation that we faced with China and the European Union. In those circumstances there was a rush of people trying to get to the United states who are noncitizens, and so a large number of people who were likely infected in fluxed to this country. • Senator Lindsey Graham has written 2 letters to me telling me that I must go to the border and see the seriousness of the situation since I am the chief medical advisor to the president. Obviously this is a political ploy to embarrass president Biden. I just wrote back to senator Graham and told him that my job is to develop vaccines and drugs and to be involved in strictly medical issues, and that the border problems are the CDC, the Department of Homeland Security, or the Department of State. PRESS: Interview with India Express (print); White House Press briefing (discussed 2nd shot); Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) – TV; Fireside Cat Online with Canadian Genomic Forum; WBUR (NPR) – “On Point” with Meghna Chakrabarti; Instgram with Eva Longoria; Local TV for Memphis, TN and New Orleans, LA; Institute), Torrian Baskerville of NASTAD, Edward Bitarakwate, Uganda Country Director for EGPAF, and Joyce Ouma of National Empowerment Network of PLWH in Kenya, and Maureen Goodenow of OAR Had usual Zoom meet with Sec Becerra. I informed him of Novovax results. Had SCIF meeting with Deputies regarding global distribution of vaccines PRESS: Andy Slavitt tweets a strong defense of me; Health Care Radio Interview June 15, 2021 – Global – 176,000,000/3,800,000; USA – 33,300,000/598,000 Cases continue to come: PRESS: NBC “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon June 16, 2021- Global – 176,000,000/3,800,000; USA – 33,300,000/600,000 Bob Redfield is out there spouting incorrect information saying that he feels strongly that this was a virus that leaked from a laboratory. The basis of his saying this is that he feels that the virus was so well adapted to humans right from the beginning that it had to have leaked from a lab. Any respectable virologist would know that this is total nonsense since the virus clearly could have jumped species as a less efficient spreader and causer of serious disease and had been circulating in the human population beneath the radar screen gathering efficiency in transmission and pathogenesis until it was finally recognized in the middle of December of 2019 when many people were getting seriously ill. This is the way viruses evolve from nature. In fact, we are still seeing that to this day in what we are currently experiencing in that variants are developing greater capability of spreading and gaining even greater pathogenesis. Another example of Bob Redfield being dead wrong. I am surprised and disappointed that he is out there spouting such nonsense. I guess that he wants to feel relevant now that he is no longer CDC Director. Email of support fro Michel Kazatchkine: From: Michel Kazatchkine <contact@michelkazatchkine.com> Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at 9:54 AM To: "Lane, Cliff (NIH/NIAID) [E]" <clane@niaid.nih.gov> Subject: Tony Dear Cliff, Hope you are well. As many these days, I am looking forward very much to America being back in global / multilateral health! As many many people around the world, I feel deeply sorry and frustrated about the attacks on Tony. I know that his box is full. That is why I allowed myself to use your mail to convey him a message of friendship and support. Warm greetings Professor Michel Kazatchkine Special Advisor to the Joint United Nations Program on AIDS (UNAIDS) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Senior Fellow, Global Health Center, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva NEWS CLIPPING — USA TODAY — CONDENSED (1 SOURCE PAGE) “PRESS: CBS “This Morning”; ITV (UK TV); Interview with Alison Young of USA Today on lab-leak hypothesis; Interview with Yahoo Life; Did White House digital team PSA at NIH; New York Times Sway Podcast with…” Historical record of A.S. Fauci - Part 4

PRESS: CNN with Laura Coates July 17, 2022 (Sunday) Important conversation with Ashish Jha. But she's called me up and wanted my opinion and backing on what he wants to bring up to Ron Klain. He wants to propose putting billions of dollars into a program that would mimic operation warp speed in which he has been calling “hyperdrive”. The purpose is to put a full court press on getting you closely administered vaccines to prevent infection and transmission as well as next generation platform and imagine designs for greater breadth and durability of response. These latter concepts word described by me to him. The reason Ashish wanted my help was that he heard from Ron that unless we're proposing something that is more than just incremental and that would actually be transformative and play a major role in turning around how Americans think about COVID, then he doubts that Ron will take the step to go to the president to have the president use a chit with the Congress to get the money. The trick about all of this is that Ron will want a product to go into the arms of Americans within 18 months to coincide with approaching the end of the administration and the election for the presidency. I told Ron that I would back him on the transformative nature of the two pillars that I mentioned above, but I have considerable skepticism as to whether or not we can do this in 18 months. I suggested to Ashish that week altogether a group comprised of him, me, Peter Marks and Rob Califf from the FDA as well as some knowledgeable people from biotech and pharma. Unless we have corporate sponsors we are not going to go anywhere with this and we will never be able to do it in 18 months. Ashish will set-up the meeting and hopefully we can make a determination and get back to the president. Ashish feels that if we cannot convince Ron about this then there is no way that we can get the money. July 18, 2022 Sarah Ohermohle wrote an article in Politico where I mentioned that I would be leaving the NIH sometime before the end of President Biden's first term to which is January 2025. This is being interpreted by many in the press that I'm announcing my retirement. This is obviously not the case because I have given no date for stepping down and I am not retiring when I leave government service. However given the interest in me it is not surprising that this is now gone viral: Anthony Fauci wants to put Covid’s politicization behind him The disease fighter says he’s plotting his departure and reflecting on how he wants to be remembered. Financial Times: Kiran Stacey US chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci to step down in Joe Biden’s first term Kiran Stacey 4-5 minutes Washington Post: Fauci says he will retire from government post by the end of Biden’s term By Yasmeen Abutaleb July 18, 2022 at 11:45 a.m. EDT New York Times (Sheryl Stolberg): Fauci Says He Will ‘Almost Certainly’ Retire by January 2025 Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, 81, said he expected to see out President Biden’s current term. Wall Street Journal – Stephanie Armour and Betsy McKay Anthony Fauci Plans to Retire by End of Biden’s Term One of the leading public faces of the U.S. public-health response to Covid-19 says he hasn’t decided on exact date ---------------------------------- I had a very good talk today with Sam Bankman-Fried and his brother Gabriel Bankman who runs a foundation called “Guarding Against Pandemics”. Also on the call were their associates Jacob Swett and Annabel Snidow. (see above) . We spoke about how Sam with his billions of dollars could partner with the NIH and pushing the scientific agenda for the prototype pathogen approach of pandemic preparedness. Sam is a good friend of senator Joe Manchin and Joe is the one who originally pointed Sam in my direction to see if somehow we can all work together to having some sort of a partnership where the Congress puts in a certain amount for pandemic preparedness using the prototype pathogen model and Sam puts in an equal amount to support the effort through NI AID. We left it that they put together a proposal and that I serve as the scientific advisor for the amount of money that Sam wants to put into this even though I must be careful and will be careful about not getting involved in writing any legislation since Manchin has been talking about writing this into a reconciliation bill. PRESS: CNN with Kate Bolduan; Reuters interview with Julie Steenhuysen; NBC Online Web; NPR with Rob Stein (talking about the Politico article (see above) July 19, 2022 I had an important conversation this morning with Peter Staley in which I asked his advice about messaging to the gay community regarding monkey pox. There seems to be a debate in New York City among public health officials versus some gay leaders. The tension is whether or not to tell gay men to hold off on multiple sexual partners until they get a PrEP version of the vaccine. Some people are saying that that would increase the stigma against gay men. However, Peter agrees with me that there is nothing wrong with and probably a good idea to tell gay men to just hold off and cool it for the next couple of weeks until we get enough vaccine to vaccinate all people who are at risk namely those who've had multiple sexual partners within the last 14 days. I will be out in the press talking about this and I just wanted to check with Peter as to whether he agreed with me and in fact he does. BA.5 dominating isolates: PRESS: The Hill Health Summit Interview and streaming with Steve Clemons; Good Housekeeping with Zee Krstic; WHUR 96.3 FM DMV/ HBCU Network with Harold Fisher;WJLB 97.9 Detroit with Bushman; WNYM (FOX-NYC) TV with Lori Stokes; July 20, 2022 I just had an important conversation with Rochelle in which I related to her the conversation that I had last night with Carlos Del Rio in which Carlos articulated that there's a great deal of concern and agitation in the gay community, which I already am aware of, regarding the difficulty in getting TPOXX for the treatment of monkey pox. I decided to call Rachel and give her a heads up that the community is really starting to get very agitated to the point that they may be attacking the administration and her and the FDA and all of us in the press if we don't do something soon to cut down the difficulty in getting TPOXX to those in need. I suggested to her that she and the FDA think in terms of doing something akin to the parallel track approach that I initiated decades ago during the HIV pandemic. She will look into this with her people. I had a great meeting today in building 31 with Dr. Karl Lauterbach, the Minister of Health of Germany. He relied heavily very heavily on my advice about how to handle the decision about and distribution of booster shots for COVID in Germany. He is having some of the same problems as we are having here in trying to decide what the correct booster should be in the fall. He has already ordered millions of doses of Moderna bivalent which is an omicron plus ancestral as well as Pfizer which is a BA.4/5 bivalent plus ancestral. Moderna is obviously pushing their product, but Karl was very interested in what my opinion was. I told him that on the advice of me and others, the FDA has already authorized the bivalent of BA.4/5 and ancestral for the full dose. It is now up to the CDC and teir ACIp to make a recommendation f who “should” versus “may” receive the dose. We also spoke about the tension regarding vaccinating people now who are at risk of severe complications given that there is a wave of infections in Germany as well as in the United States versus waiting until a more variant-specific boost is available in the fall. Germany is facing the same dilemma as we are in that some people in Germany are arguing in a very similar way to Paul Offit who is saying that we should not be vaccinating people now. Paul is smart and a good friend but he is a victim of what I consider making the perfect the enemy of the good. From a purely immunological standpoint it is obviously not optimal to have a boost now (ancestral) and require an even better boost (bivalend BA.4/5 + ancestral) just a couple of months down the pike. However, you have to balance the public health benefit of getting some form of vaccine to people who are at risk for infection and severe disease now compared to the relatively minor negative effects of giving a vaccine shot now followed in 2 to 3 months by a vaccine shot with a better boost. I was surprised that bloggers such as Paul Offit have a major impact globally. Karl mentioned to me that he and his colleagues listen very carefully to what I say and it would be very helpful to them to hear what I am telling him today and that I agree completely with him since he is absolutely in the same lane as I as well as many of my NIH colleagues including Rick Koup and others. It was a very stimulating conversation and I was on my A game. We then went on to discuss the issue of monkeypox. According to Karl monkey pox is out of control in Germany and similar to what we are seeing in the United States the gay community is very frustrated with the lack of as many vaccines as they need as well as the lack of easy access to antivirals. They seem to be having no trouble with diagnostics which are plentiful. I explain to him that our situation is very similar here in the United States. The conversation ended with him wanting to take a picture with me since his daughter who is 15 years old apparently is a great fan of mine. We exchanged cell phone numbers and he promised me that he would be calling me frequently. John Laureman (Bloomberg) wrote a very nice laudation of me today: An Early Farewell to America’s Top Pandemic Expert July 21, 222 Harassment from the far right continues: Rand Paul Sends Message To Fauci: You’ll Have To Testify Under Oath If GOP Wins. Fox News (7/20, 23.99M) reports, “Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., issued a warning to Dr. Anthony Fauci: If the GOP takes back Congress in the midterms, be prepared to testify under oath regarding the coronavirus pandemic.” On Wednesday, he argued on “America Reports” that “the American people deserve the truth and answers on whether there was a cover-up for a lab leak in China.” President Biden tested positive today (Thursday)! Tested negative on Tuesday, went to Boston on Wednesday; had mild sxs this AM and tested positive. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Letter-7.21.pdf Obvious media storm. He has mild sxs. My only concern in the way that his MD (Kevin O’Connor) is treating him is that he D/C’d his Eliquis and Lipitor. I do not care about the Lipitor, but I am very concerned about the discontinuing completely of the Eliquis. The president has a atrial fibrillation and I would have merely lowered his dose to 1/2 the dose rather than completely discontinuing it because of my concern about him throwing analysis in getting a stroke. I mentioned this to a sheesh during a briefing called this evening since we are all going on television tomorrow. Couple of interesting things related to the infection of the president. 1) I called up Kevin O'Connor who is the physician to the president and got a briefing from him for the simple reason then when I go out on TV and I'm asked whether or not I have been consulted with it would be rather embarrassing to say that they did not call the so-called most famous infectious diseases expert in the world, who happens to also be the chief medical advisor to the president. I explained to Kevin my concern about the anticoagulation. He understood my concern and said that he has started the president on low dose aspirin which is a good thing. Kevin explained that the president was negative for an antigen test on Tuesday, did not sleep well on Wednesday evening, and woke up on Thursday predominantly with fatigue. Tested himself on a routine basis which for him is 2 to three times per week. The test came back positive, confirmed by a PCR. Throughout the day he then began to get sniffles, at first a dry cough and then a loose cough. His temperature rose to 99.4 F, which came back to normal with tylenol. His oxygen saturation was 97 to 98%. He was resting reasonably comfortably when Kevin left him tonight. 2) We had a meeting with the comms people and Ashish Jha this late afternoon in preparation for media requests tomorrow. I was under the impression that they were going to spread out the request for morning shows between Ashish and me. I found out later in the evening that all the morning shows will go to Ashish and they will give me regional meeting in the afternoon. As mentioned several times above it is very clear that Ashish is trying to dominate the media scene with regard to COVID-19 and is telling his staff to lead me out of the major media hits. Again, he does a good job but it is a bit of Bush league to do that. I have asked Courtney to communicate with the White House calms people and two in a very nice way ask them just what is going on here. Monkeypox continues to spread throughout the world. 15,000 cases worldwide in 70 countries; >2000 in USA: Monkeypox Virus Infection in Humans across 16 Countries — April–June 2022 J.P. Thornhill, S. Barkati, S. Walmsley, J. Rockstroh, A. Antinori, L.B. Harrison, R. Palich, A. Nori, I. Reeves, M.S. Habibi, V. Apea, C. Boesecke, L. Vandekerckhove, M. Yakubovsky, E. Sendagorta, J.L. Blanco, E. Florence, D. Moschese, F.M. Maltez, A. Goorhuis, V. Pourcher, P. Migaud, S. Noe, C. Pintado, F. Maggi, A.-B.E. Hansen, C. Hoffmann, J.I. Lezama, C. Mussini, A.M. Cattelan, K. Makofane, D. Tan, S. Nozza, J. Nemeth, M.B. Klein, and C.M. Orkin, for the SHARE-net Clinical Group* The activist community is very angry. See Washington Post article: Opinion The Biden administration’s monkeypox response has been a mess By Gregg Gonsalves July 21, 2022 at 3:56 p.m. EDT PRESS: FOX “Good Day” NYC TV with Rosanna Scotto; WGN Chicago Radio with Peter McMurray and Rob Martier; July 22, 2022 Kevin O'Connor called me this morning at 10 48 AM to give me an update on the president's condition. He is quite stable has a slight fever up to 99F that is easily brought down by tylenol. He has a cough which started off as dry but now is a bit “loose” as described by Kevin which means it seems deeper in the chest. However, the president feels well enough to continue to work from the White House although he is a bit fatigued as you might expect. More later. Letter from Kevin O’Connor to the USA – POTUS doing well: The Guardian – Gay community in revolt about monkeypox. Article about Peter Staley: ‘Nobody’s acting like this is an emergency’: Act Up veteran Peter Staley condemns US monkeypox response Wilfred Chan Rochelle has pleaded with me to back the CDC plan of distributing vaccine more on the basis of at risk population then on the actual number of cases since it is anticipated that with a variety of gay pride galas coming up including “Southern Decadence” among others that although there are not a lot of cases in the southern states including Louisiana, there will be soon and although New York City and other large cities but particularly in New York City is hammering the White House about the lines that there are to get vaccine in people who perceive themselves and in fact are practicing risk behavior even though they have not been in direct documented contact with an infected person. The White House is responding to the complaints of the gay community that the response to the monkeypox outbreak has been a terrible disaster (see above with Peter Staley) and they are pushing Rochelle and the secretary to distribute it favoring New York since they have the most cases. Rachel wants me and I agree to back her in making it a 75% on risk and 25% on cases whereas the White House wants the distribution to be 25% on risk and 75% on cases. I believe that this is short sighted because we are quickly going to see areas that do not have a lot of cases now but will very soon not having enough vaccine to prevent the outbreak. I was very forceful in the zoom call with the secretary and the HHS team in saying that I would back Rochelle; however, we must have the flexibility of apportioning doses to the at risk locations in small allocations so that if they don't use them we will not have given them all of their doses at one time and thus cannot recall them to give them to cities and locations that actually have a large number of cases. Once you send doses to a location, by FDA regulations, you can't pull them back and send them somewhere else. And so smaller allocations are the answer. Whether or not Ron Klain will accept this is a big question. He is very interested in the political blowback from New York. This is understandable since he is a politician but he is not looking at it from a purely public health standpoint. I was very forceful with the HHS team when the comms people were suggesting that we explain this gap that we have in availability of vaccines on the lack of funding. I told the secretary on the zoom that I have to be frank with them, but I thought that this would be a total disaster since that is an excuse and not an explanation and the gay community would kill them for making excuses. I mentioned that we had to own the problem and tell them that it would have been nice to have all the doses that everybody needed, but the fact is we don't have all the doses and therefore we will do everything we can to get as many doses to people as we can in an equitable manner. Bottom line is that I told them what I told the Trump administration, and that is the only way to solve a problem is to first own the problem. Was on multiple TV shows (see below). One of the things that came up was why the president's physician, doctor Kevin O'Connor, was not out there describing the president's condition. I answered that I was not in the loop and I did not know why. However it is very clear as mentioned above and as confirmed by Dori Solcido that Ashish really wants the spotlight and wants to be the one talking about the president's condition. I consider that an unforced error because that's what the press is going to focus on that we are hiding something. I do not want to get into that seen Ashish wanting to essentially be on every single possible major TV show, but that's the way it is. Also, the White House was concerned that Kevin mentioned that the president had a temperature of 99.4F. the temp responded very well to Tylenol and I brought up too Dory as to how foolish it is to get upset because Kevin mentioned his temperature. It is the perfectly normal thing to have a low grade temperature with a upper respiratory infection. Even though this White House is a good White House they're concerned about message control is ill advised and they are only making unforced errors. I spoke again tonight (10:00 PM) with Kevin O'Connor and he brought me up to date on the President's condition. He still requires Tylenol to keep his temperature down. He is very comfortable and even played some golf on the putting range in the White House outside because he was getting a little bit cabin fever. According to Kevin he continues to improve, but Kevin is concerned about Paxlovid rebound and is considering giving him eight days of the drug. He wanted my opinion as to whether or not that was a good idea. I am ambivalent about this since there will be a lot of blowback about why he was treated differently than the recommendations. Cliff lane would not treat him for an extra few days but would take the chance that he was going to rebound. I will recheck with Kevin tomorrow. I had a long talk with Raj Panjabi (NSC) who sought my advice about how to deal with the activist group who feel that he is lying to them and that they have lost confidence in his ability to give them straight information. I mentioned to Raj that he needs to be straight with the activists and put himself in their shoes where they are looking at hundreds of millions of dollars invested in a product to be put in this row tegic national stockpile, and now that we need that product it is not available to the gay community. They are outraged and all he and his colleagues are doing is making excuses for it (see above about owning the problem). I made it clear to Raj and cannot have his comms person speak to Peter Staley, David Barr, and James Krellenstein et al. he must do it himself otherwise it would be showing disrespect to the activists. Raj was extremely grateful for my tutoring of him in this regard. PRESS: CBS Livestream Online; NY1 Spectrum News TV with Kevin Frey; Alice Park with Time magazine; ABC World New Tonight; NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt; CNN “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer; FOX News with Brett Baier; MSNBC “The Beat” with Ari Melber; KMOJ FM (Minneapolis) with Freddie Bell; Univision National with Andrea Linares; Telemundo National with unknown July 23, 2022 Yesterday I spoke with dawn O'Connell and told her that I would be very much in favor of the secretary declaring a public health emergency for monkeypox. She is now running it up the chain to see what others think about that.. I had my usual call this morning with Kevin O'Connor, the president's physician. It was a disturbing call because Kevin told me that Ashish is really trying to manipulate what Kevin says regarding the health of the president and Kevin is starting to get very aggravated by this. For example, Ashish did not want Kevin to mention that the president's temperature was 99.4F because then that would be a topic for the news discussion. That is completely ridiculous because it is totally expected that someone with a URI would have a mild temperature responsive to Tylenol. In addition, Ashish did not like the use of the word “malaise” which was the exact word the president used to describe how he felt. Ashish was afraid that that word would bring up recall of president Jimmy Carter and the negative response that the country had to his describing “malaise” in the country. And then finally in today's report Kevin wanted to put in a new symptom that the president complained of which was muscle aches, an entirely understandable symptom that has nothing to do with progression of disease. They insisted that he not add that. Kevin pushed back and said that he would not sign off on anything if they force him to hold back on what the true symptoms are. Call from Larry Horowitz regarding Ron Klain saying to him (Larry) that the President wants to make some changes since Health area (COVID/MPX) is not going well. “Someone needs to get fired.” Primary target is Becerra, but they feel that they cannot fire him since they never would get a replacement confirmed in he Senate. Next in line in Rochelle. They really are disappointed with Rochelle and want to fire her. They asked Larry for suggestions for replacements. Larry called me about this. He suggests Mark McLellan or Anne Schuchat. Wants names from me. Larry also called Jeff Z. They do not know that Jeff is working with me regarding my stepping down. Could get complicated. I called Jeff and we discussed the situation. See below my discussion the next day (Sunday) with Jeff. Had a long conversation with Jeff about the above issue concerning firing someone at HHS/CDC. Similar to the situation that I faced years ago with Secretary Burwell wanting to fire Tom Frieden because of poor performance with Ebola where I defended Tom, I found myself defending Rochelle. Rochelle is a wonderful person, but she does not have control over her agency and she has to learn to balance the politically expedient thing while still maintaining solid scientific principles. The problem is she relies too heavily on the entrenched people at CDC who are smart and will meaning but who have no oversight or quality control from the outside. This allows them to proceed with somewhat antiquated if not ossified ideas. As the discussion went the options were to fire Secretary Becerra; however, this would be very difficult since it would be tough to get a Senate confirmation for a secretary within a relatively acceptable period of time. The other option is to fire Rochelle, but now is not the time to do that and it would be against my recommendation. One of the points that Jeff made is that they are considering in a humane way to ask Rochelle to step down at the end of the year before the beginning of the second-half of the first term. Despite my trying to protect Rochelle there is a very good chance that that will happen. Kevin O’Connor continues to call me 2x/day. The president continues to improve and is completed his 4th day on Paxlovid. .He was out for four hours today by the pool doing reading work. The next big question is whether to give him eight days or 10 days instead of five days of pax livid. That would be a problem since it would be against FDA authorization and the public would cry out that we had treating him differently than other people. the concern on the part of the White House is that if he rebounds after he is negative for several days, he will likely be out talking and mingling with people. If he infects someone following an inadvertent rebound, he will be blamed for infecting other people. My suggestion would be to treat him for five days have him stay in the White House virtually for an additional five days testing him everyday if he turns negative as soon as he turns negative send him out even if it's before the 10 day. And have him wear a mask in order to avoid him inadvertently infecting people if he rebounds, I would just test him every morning before he gets up and goes out to meet with people. If he is negative he will be OK, if he is positive continued isolating. Emergency phone call among HHS people (Becerra, Dawn et al) regarding convincing POTUS (and Ron) to declare a Public Health Emergency (PHE) for MPX. Becerra says that POTUS will rely heavily on my opinion. Problem is that they are concerned that if you declare a PHE for monkey pox then why not declare it for gun violence or for reproductive rights. That sounds very much like the negativistic attitude of RON. PRESS: ABC “Good Morning America” Weekend; CBS Mornings (Weekend); CNN “New Day” Weekend; Fox News with Neil Cavuto July 24, 2022 Kevin O’Connor continues to call me 2x/day. The President continues to improve and is completed his 4th day (Sunday) on Paxlovid. He was out for four hours today by the pool doing reading work. The next big question is whether to give him eight days or 10 days instead of five days of Paxlovid. That would be a problem since it would be against FDA authorization and the public would cry out that we had treating him differently than other people. The concern on the part of the White House is that if he rebounds after he is negative for several days, he will likely be out talking and mingling with people. If he infects someone following an unrecognized rebound, he will be blamed for infecting other people. My suggestion would be to treat him for five days, have him stay in the White House virtually up to an additional five days testing him everyday. If he turns negative, as soon as he turns negative send him out even if it's before the 10 day period. And have him wear a mask in order to avoid him inadvertently infecting people if he rebounds, I would be OK, if he is positive continued isolating. Had long conversation with Ashish who was asking my advice. He started off the conversation by saying that the White House continues to have a lot of problems with Rochelle, the latest of which was the apportionment of vaccine doses. (See discussion above about strong consideration of asking her to step down). Ashish said that Ron wants my take on the situation with Rochelle/CDC and the distribution of vaccine doses. She wants to divide the vaccines for monkey pox according to the formula of 25% according to cases and 75% according to risk. This is something that we had discussed yesterday in a call with the secretary. During that call I promised that I would back Rochelle's proposal because of the fact that if they do not distribute more, namely 75%, according to risk, when we have outbreaks related to “Southern Decadence” and other gay pride functions we will not have vaccine in place to counter it. However Ron Klain is adamant that he does not want vaccines shipped to locations in which there are few cases and when they do not get cases or they do not administer vaccine to their case countthat the vaccine goes to waste (you cannot reship vaccine). I made the following point to the secretary yesterday and I repeated it word for word to Ron today. I would be supportive of a 25% for cases and 75% for risk distribution only if the jurisdictions that received the 75% for risk are given the vaccines in small apportionments. For example if they were scheduled to get 400 vaccines, you would give them 100 and tell them that if they don't use that 100 expeditiously the next shipment of 100 would not be given to them but would be given to a jurisdiction that has a high number of cases. I explained this to Ron when he called me today and told him that that would be my position. He said that Ron is very interested in what I would do and that this would hold a great deal of weight in the discussions that we will have tomorrow, which is Monday. Had a long conversation with Jeff about the above issue concerning firing someone at HHS/CDC. Similar to the situation that I faced years ago with Secretary Burwell wanting to fire Tom Frieden because of poor performance with Ebola where I defended Tom, I found myself defending Rochelle. Rochelle is a wonderful person, but she does not have control over her agency and she has to learn to balance the politically expedient thing while still maintaining solid scientific principles. The problem is she relies too heavily on the entrenched people at CDC who are smart and will meaning but who have no oversight or quality control from the outside. This allows them to proceed with somewhat antiquated if not ossified ideas. As the discussion went the options were to fire Secretary Becerra; however, this would be very difficult since it would be tough to get a Senate confirmation for a secretary within a relatively acceptable period of time. The other option is to fire Rochelle, but now is not the time to do that and it would be against my recommendation. One of the points that Jeff made is that they are considering in a humane way to ask Rochelle to step down at the end of the year before the beginning of the second-half of the first term. Despite my trying to protect Rochelle there is a very good chance that that will happen. Kevin O’Connor continues to call me 2x/day. The president continues to improve and is completed his 4th day on Paxlovid. He was out for four hours today by the pool doing reading work. The next big question is whether to give him eight days or 10 days instead of five days of pax livid. That would be a problem since it would be against FDA authorization and the public would cry out that we had treating him differently than other people. the concern on the part of the White House is that if he rebounds after he is negative for several days, he will likely be out talking and mingling with people. If he infects someone following an inadvertent rebound, he will be blamed for infecting other people. My suggestion would be to treat him for five days have him stay in the White House virtually for an additional five days testing him every day if he turns negative as soon as he turns negative send him out even if it's before the 10 day. And have him wear a mask in order to avoid him inadvertently infecting people if he rebounds, I would just test him every morning before he gets up and goes out to meet with people. If he is negative he will be OK, if he is positive continued isolating. Of note, Ashish states that he wants Kevin to go up in front of the cameras to describe the President's condition, but it is Ron who does not want him to go up as well as Karine JeanPierre. That is interesting because I am hearing that it is Ron who does not want Kevin to get up in front of a camera. PRESS: MSNBC with Jonathan Capehart July 25, 2022 Spoke with Kevin O'Connor again this morning and evening. the president is doing extremely well and continues to improve. He we'll complete his fifth day of Paxlovid today. The next question will be when he can go out into society. I have a phone call with Ashish this afternoon and I will recommend that we not give him additional days of drug but that we have him stay masked inside for 5 days or until he tests negative by antigen test. They are concerned about rebound; however, I have told them that if he tests every morning for five to 10 days after his Paxlovid course ends and he does not show any positivity, he can go out that day and proceed with business. That would be much more acceptable to the general public then to give him an extra few days of drug which would not actually guarantee that he does not rebound. PRESS: The Hill “Rising”; CBC Radio with Robin Bresnahan; July 26, 2022 Continuing my twice per day discussion with Kevin O'Connor regarding the president's condition. The POTUS Is doing very well and improving substantially each day. Today is one day following the termination of his Paxlovid therapy and his CT level is 35 which means that he has very little replication competent virus in his nasopharynx. He feels very well and we had a long discussion this evening with Kevin, Ashish Jha, and Ron Klain as to what the presidents activities could be looking forward. He tested negative today by antigen test and has a very nice CT level as mentioned above. The White House staff is concerned about possible rebound and I made a suggestion that he stay masked and in isolation until he gets two negative antigen tests in a row. After that he can go out and do duties on the outside provided that he does not travel and that he wears a mask. I would test him intimately a few times a week to see if he rebounds. It became clear to me that Ron Klain and the president rely heavily upon my advice but what to do with the president's condition. I have developed a very good relationship with Kevin O'Connor and he calls me twice a day. We had some serious discussions with secretary Becerra about having a consistent message about the distribution of the monkey pox vaccine. See above about the concern of having vaccine in places that are not being utilized well there are lines in other jurisdictions. I supported the CDC recommendation of distributing the vaccine with 75% to risk areas and 25% to actual cases so long as individual jurisdictions utilize the vaccine. The CDC will send out the vaccine in tranches that will not be followed up with more vaccine until the jurisdiction actually utilizes the vaccine so that we don't have unused doses in one area and demands more than supply in another area. We also discussed whether or not we should declare monkeypox a public health emergency. I argued strongly that we do that in order to send a signal to the MSM community that we are very serious about the situation that they find themselves under. We had the vaccine summit today in the Indian treaty room of the executive office building. I gave a talk on the NIH research agenda. Also I did an enormous amount of press today which overlapped with a number of meetings with the White House as well as with secretary becerra. Big time stressed today and I feel it. PRESS: CNN “New Day” with John Berman; MSNBC “Morning Joe”; NPR “All things Considered”; News Nation Now TV; MSNBC “The Reid Out” with Jason Johnson July 27, 2022 Paper in Nature today validates my disagreement with the CDC last year when Vivek and I pushed back against their saying that you do not need to test after 5 days of isolation after infection since most of the transmissions occur in the first few days of infection and after day 10 you are OK (see prior notes): How long is COVID infectious? What scientists know so far Those with SARS-CoV-2 are often advised to isolate for only a few days. But evidence is mounting that some people can continue to pass on the virus for much longer. • David Adam POTUS back to work. The letter below is based on conversations I had last night with Ron, Kevin, Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon, etc.: I was part of the opening panel of the introduction of the UN aids report very beginning of the IAS meeting in Montreal. The name of the report presented by Winnie Byanyima (Exec Director of UNAIDS) is “In Danger”. Also on the panel was John Nkengasong (PEPFAR), Adeeba Kamarulzaman (President of IAS), Andriy Klepikov (Dir. Alliance for Public Health in Ukraine, Keren Dunaway, International Community of Women Living with HIV, Anita Vandenbald Canadian MP. AP reporting on the above: People are exhausted with epidemics and pandemics,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s leading AIDS expert. “We have to fight twice as hard to get HIV back on the radar screen where it belongs.” Yesterday it was a little bit of a distributing and embarrassing situation where Raj Panjabi piggy-backed his own little mini session on monkey pox right after Vaccine summit at the White House at the very last minute without letting dawn or Connell know until literally I have to now will before he was asking her to speak. bottom line is it all is that although everyone agrees that Raj is a really good guy and his heart is in the right place he is really over his head in his job at the NSC in charge of pandemic preparedness. Dawn believes that the White House is well aware of that and that is the reason why they are appointing any “Monkeypox Tsar” Washington Post: The Fauci ‘ouchie’ was a near miracle. We need another. By the Editorial Board July 27, 2022 at 2:51 p.m. EDT Variety: Dr. Fauci, Roberta Flack and Zora Neale Hurston Documentaries on the Way, PBS Boss Announces Went to a terrific social function at the incredible home of Adrienne Arsht at 6 Chevy Chase Circle. It was a cabaret night where American Pops Orchestra founder/leader had a contest played old songs and had the audience guess the singer. I thought that I might win since I got only 2 wrong, but Renee Fleming won with an even better score. Had interesting conversation with Brett Baier where he finally admitted that the 2 recent Science papers by Worobey, Andersen, Rasmussen et al convince him that the lab leak theory is really not true. PRESS: New York Daily News interview with Tim Balk; NPR WBUR Boston with John Ringer; Dr. Anthony Fauci says government response to monkeypox must address anti-gay stigmas Muri Assunção, New York Daily News July 28, 2022 Cases and hospitalizations continue to rise slowly with very little increase in deaths. I recommend to Becerra to declare PHE. Monkeypox: Global.health: 20,671 confirmed MPX cases, 42 suspected in 84 non-endemic countries. 4600 in USA. 2 children infected in USA from mother who had sex with bisexual man The Montreal Gazette concerning my comments (virtually at the UNAIDS report unveiling): Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States and chief medical adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, said the UNAIDS report is “a reminder that the global plague” of HIV/AIDS “continues to rage,” even though much of our attention diverted to the global pandemic of COVID and now, monkeypox. “All of us in the global HIV community must work to reach vulnerable communities,” he said, and the report is a reminder that “we can do better in this, the fifth decade of AIDS. The priority must be to implement better treatment modalities, while improving and optimizing the next generation of interventions.” The COVID pandemic and, now, monkeypox, mean “people are exhausted with epidemics and pandemics. We have to fight twice as hard to get HIV back on the radar screen, where it belongs,” Fauci said. I was involved in a very difficult zoom cool this evening with Peter Marks. Rob Califf, Vivek, David Kessler, Julia Tierney (FDA), Hillary Marston, among others about the potential conflict that might occur tomorrow when Ashish has convinced the president to come out and say that anyone who's not been boosted recently should get boosted. However, we now know that both moderna and Pfizer will have the BA.5 bivalent boost available the first week of September. This will create a major messaging problem since we are telling people to get boosted with the vaccine that doesn't cover the current BA.5 variant when the actual variant-specific boost will be available 5 weeks from now. Somehow or other Ashish took the initiative to convince the president to say this without consulting with the FDA or the CDC. If these mixed messages go out it will be a major cluster. I tried to bring this up to them and suggested strongly that they have a zoom in the morning before any of these announcements are made in order to get a common message otherwise it will look like one of the worst mixed messages to come out in a long time. I'm starting to see right now the advantage of having Jeff as the coordinator since he understands the interactions among the different agencies of government whereas Ashish is smart, a very good communicator and is well meaning, but he is more about looking like he's taking the lead on things than coordinating. Later in the evening, I had dinner over jeff's and Mary’s house which was a great evening. Guests at the dinner besides Chris and I were: Susan Rice, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his wife Charlene, Deb Harmon, Wally Adeyemo. The discussion was very stimulating particularly Susan Rice telling us stories of her escapades during the Obama administration and secretary Austin telling us about the tension in his multiple responsibilities. One of those discussions of the night was the desire of Nancy Pelosi to go to Taiwan which everybody feels is a very bad idea given the geopolitical situation. However for some reason she feels she needs to go there and everyone seems to be against it. July 29, 2022 See e-mail chain below regarding the confusion about mixed messages related to my note yesterday: From: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Sent: Friday, July 29, 2022 7:35 AM To: Marks, Peter (FDA/CBER) <Peter.Marks@fda.hhs.gov>; Califf, Robert <RMC001@fda.hhs.gov>; Tierney, Julia (FDA/OC) <Julia.Tierney@fda.hhs.gov>; Tabak, Lawrence (NIH/OD) [E] <Lawrence.Tabak@nih.gov>; O'Connell, Dawn (OS/ASPR/IO) <Dawn.Oconnell@hhs.gov>; Levine, Rachel (HHS/OASH) <Rachel.Levine@hhs.gov>; Murthy, Vivek (HHS/OASH) <Vivek.Murthy@hhs.gov>; Kessler, David (HHS/IOS) <David.Kessler@hhs.gov>; Varrone, Michael (HHS/OGC) <Michael.Varrone@hhs.gov>; Roos, Jason (OS/ASPR/H-CORE) <Jason.Roos@hhs.gov>; Mahon, Barbara (CDC/DDID/NCIRD/OD) <bdm3@cdc.gov>; Goldstein, Robert (CDC/OD) <qyd2@cdc.gov>; Berger, Sherri (CDC/OD/OCS) <sob8@cdc.gov>; Marston, Hilary (FDA/OC) <Hilary.Marston@fda.hhs.gov> Subject: RE: Confidential – Next Steps on Expanding Eligibility for Additional Booster Team: I know that we are all struggling with this and trying to get it right, but I really have a problem with the 4/8/12 message. It is not that it is incorrect from a medical and/or immunological standpoint. It is that it will it be very confusing. I know that we are trying to save lives by getting people vaccinated and boosted; however, for the overwhelming most part, the people who are going to get vaccinated (particularly the elderly) are already vaccinated and I am not sure how much we are going to move the needle in getting the “unboosted” to get boosted when we are simultaneously saying that in 5 weeks we will have a much better and more specific vaccine. That is an inherently confusing message that would be counterproductive. Right now if we were three months away or even two months away from a variant specific boost I could see making a big push to get people boosted now. However, starting with Monday we will be five weeks away from a variant specific boost. If we want to have one cogent prevailing message it is that we have a very important boost that will be available in five weeks. The message should be focused on that. Anything that confuses that will work against us. Just my take…. Thanks, Tony Anthony S. Fauci, MD Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Building 31, Room 7A-03 31 Center Drive, MSC 2520 National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD 20892-2520 Phone: (301) 496-2263 FAX: (301) 496-4409 E-mail: afauci@niaid.nih.gov The information in this e-mail and any of its attachments is confidential and may contain sensitive information. It should not be used by anyone who is not the original intended recipient. If you have received this e-mail in error please inform the sender and delete it from your mailbox or any other storage devices. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) shall not accept liability for any statements made that are the sender's own and not expressly made on behalf of the NIAID by one of its representatives. From: Marks, Peter <Peter.Marks@fda.hhs.gov> Sent: Friday, July 29, 2022 6:58 AM To: Califf, Robert <RMC001@fda.hhs.gov>; Tierney, Julia (FDA/OC) <Julia.Tierney@fda.hhs.gov>; Tabak, Lawrence (NIH/OD) [E] <lawrence.tabak@nih.gov>; O'Connell, Dawn (OS/ASPR/IO) <Dawn.Oconnell@hhs.gov>; Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov>; Levine, Rachel (HHS/OASH) <Rachel.Levine@hhs.gov>; Murthy, Vivek (HHS/OASH) <Vivek.Murthy@hhs.gov>; Kessler, David (HHS/IOS) <David.Kessler@hhs.gov>; Varrone, Michael (HHS/OGC) <Michael.Varrone@hhs.gov>; Roos, Jason (OS/ASPR/H-CORE) <Jason.Roos@hhs.gov>; Mahon, Barbara (CDC/DDID/NCIRD/OD) <bdm3@cdc.gov>; Goldstein, Robert (CDC/OD) <qyd2@cdc.gov>; Berger, Sherri (CDC/OD/OCS) <sob8@cdc.gov>; Marston, Hilary (FDA/OC) <Hilary.Marston@fda.hhs.gov> Subject: RE: Confidential – Next Steps on Expanding Eligibility for Additional Booster Dear Rob, Thanks. Perhaps the 4/8/12 messaging is going to be the best way to go then At least 4 weeks if you are over fifty until next booster (I know the immunologist don’t love this, but there are different antigens in the booster and mRNA vaccines are not the same as protein based vaccines. This seems to balance the potential benefits and risks) At least 8 weeks if your are under fifty At least 12 weeks if you recently had COVID If you are immunocompromised, you will need to wait at least 4 weeks, but follow your healthcare providers recommendation Best Regards, Peter From: Califf, Robert <RMC001@fda.hhs.gov> Sent: Friday, July 29, 2022 6:26 AM To: Tierney, Julia <Julia.Tierney@fda.hhs.gov>; Tabak, Lawrence A (NIH) <lawrence.tabak@nih.gov>; O'Connell, Dawn (OS) <Dawn.Oconnell@hhs.gov>; Fauci, Anthony S (NIH) <afauci@niaid.nih.gov>; Levine, Rachel (OS) <Rachel.Levine@hhs.gov>; Murthy, Vivek (OS) <Vivek.Murthy@hhs.gov>; Kessler, David A (OS) <David.Kessler@hhs.gov>; Varrone, Michael (OS) <Michael.Varrone@hhs.gov>; Roos, Jason (OS) <Jason.Roos@hhs.gov>; Mahon, Barbara (CDC) <bdm3@cdc.gov>; Goldstein, Robert H (CDC) <qyd2@cdc.gov>; Berger, Sherri (CDC) <sob8@cdc.gov>; Marks, Peter <Peter.Marks@fda.hhs.gov>; Marston, Hilary <Hilary.Marston@fda.hhs.gov> Subject: Re: Confidential – Next Steps on Expanding Eligibility for Additional Booster Had a good “Ashish session” late last night. He is moving forward, but understands that the faster than expected timetable for bivalent vaccine is a really good thing. He agreed that its critical that we reach agreement on the best set of words that capture the common ground that we want people to get boosted (now 5 RWE studies showing the big effect of even the 4th shot on reducing death and hospitalization), but with the bivalent imminent lower risk people have the good option of waiting. For those who get boosted now—they can still get the bivalent in xx weeks. From my view the only thing that will be bad for public health out of our options would be for us to have different messages. All other options are a net positive in terms of reducing death and severe illness. rmc From: Julie Tierney <Julia.Tierney@fda.hhs.gov> Date: Thursday, July 28, 2022 at 10:41 PM To: Robert Califf <RMC001@fda.hhs.gov>, Lawrence Tabak <lawrence.tabak@nih.gov>, "O'Connell, Dawn (OS)" <Dawn.Oconnell@hhs.gov>, Tony Fauci <afauci@niaid.nih.gov>, Rachel Levine <Rachel.Levine@hhs.gov>, Vivek Murthy <Vivek.Murthy@hhs.gov>, David Kessler <David.Kessler@hhs.gov>, "Varrone, Michael (OS)" <Michael.Varrone@hhs.gov>, "Roos, Jason (OS)" <Jason.Roos@hhs.gov>, "Mahon, Barbara (CDC)" <bdm3@cdc.gov>, "Goldstein, Robert H (CDC)" <qyd2@cdc.gov>, "Berger, Sherri (CDC)" <sob8@cdc.gov>, Peter Marks <Peter.Marks@fda.hhs.gov>, "Marston, Hilary" <Hilary.Marston@fda.hhs.gov> Subject: Confidential – Next Steps on Expanding Eligibility for Additional Booster As a follow up, we’re still working through the FDA statement and will circle back tomorrow morning with next steps. Thanks for your patience. Had a very interesting conversation with the HHS team regarding a memo at the secretary will be sending to the president regarding the declaration of a public health emergency (PHE). the secretary expressed some concern about whether we should do that or not but his staff actually wrote a memo making it seem like he definitely wanted it I brought this out to them when I read quickly the memo while we were on the Zoom and the secretary requested that I can't fully look at the memo and make comments. I actually think we should definitely declare a PHE and I modify it the conclusion of the memo to be unambiguous about this. It was really strange that the secretary said he had reservations and his staff wrote a memo that strongly recommended that we do it. In my memo back to them I told them that they have to make up their mind one way or the other and have the memo strongly recommend what he actually wants. I rewrote the conclusion assuming that he will take my recommendation to declare it July 30, 2022 (Saturday) Just got a call at 12 noon from Kevin O'Connor that the president has had a rebound with a positive antigen test today. He is asymptomatic. This is the real problem since there are no guidelines from the CDC which dictate what to do when you have someone who you are testing virtually every day. The CDC health advisory on what to do following a rebound after Paxlovid treatment does not mention testing at all. the duration of isolation is based purely on symptoms and time from resolution of symptoms. Here again it goes back to my objection many months ago of the guidelines the CDC put out about reentry into society following infection. I had insisted back then that even though it might not be practical for everyone to get testing and often people need to get back to work after five days, they still should have put some guidance in for people who can get tested period now we are flying in the dark. Ron Klain is going to want him out as soon as possible; however, given that he is known to now be antigen positive he has to isolate for five days and then the question will arise of how often to test him and if he is positive should he be let out even with a mask. Cliff Lane feels strongly that he should be in isolation so long as he is antigen positive and can go out once he has two negative tests in a row. Got a call from Ashish making sure that we are on the same page. Also, he asked me if we should start a 2nd course of Paxlovid. I told me not to unless the POTUS gets significant sxs Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) spoke about a proposed rule that would lower Dr. Fauci's salary to $1.Stay ConnectedForbes on Facebook: ... Flag as irrelevant *****Wall Street Journal piece by Peter Loftus on July 29, 2022 is critical in its historical portrayal of the interaction of NIAID and Moderna/Pfizer. Important for the book!! WSJ: The Partnership That Made the First U.S. Covid Vaccine Gay community getting very agitated about that they perceive as the government’s slow response and resting the rapidly evolving multi pox outbreak: Frustration builds in LGBTQ community over government response to monkeypox Jen Christensen, CNN 12-15 minutes July 31, 2022 I gave the special session plenary lecture at the International AIDS Society (IAS) meeting in Montreal via a virtual presentation. I have given a plenary lecture and virtually every one of the IAS meetings since 1984. I reflected on what has transpired since the last meeting in Montreal which was in 1989. My presentation triggered a prolonged standing ovation from the audience. The session was chaired and moderated by Laura Waters of the UK. The president remains antigen positive for the second day in a row following his rebound. His CT values are 16 to 18. He has had no additional symptoms although he still has somewhat of a lingering cough. The plan is to keep him isolated until he asked two negative antigen tests in a row. I got a call from Rochelle who is stuck in Amsterdam following the cancellation of her flight from Amsterdam to Washington. She is coming back from a trip to Uganda and Kenya. She thanked me profusely for sticking up for the CDC's decision about allocation of vaccines for monkey pox. Got a call from Jen Ashton of ABC expressing concern about something that I have been almost obsessing about today and most recently. That is the fact that the public may be taking monkeypox too lightly assuming that it will stay confined to the population of men who have sex with men. In addition, we are doing nothing proactively to encourage people to cancel such events as ”Southern Decadence” and Black gay pride galas. We are starting to see cases of spillover into non men who have sex with men populations. Also, there is so much that we do not know about the Natural History of this disease and with the potential is to spread beyond MSM. I will have to talk to people at HHS and the White House that we cannot under play this outbreak. Call from Francis Collins, Acting Science Advisor to POTUS regarding NIH Director Choice – Charles Sawyer at MSKCC. Francis wants me to talk to him about the possibility of his being considered for the job of NIH director. It is essentially a recruiting call that Francis wants me to have with Charles. Apparently the president is not satisfied with either of the two names that was submitted to him: Mary Klotman (Duke) and Kimryn Rathmell (Vanderbilt). August 1, 2022 I have been somewhat concerned about Monkeypox the very beginning, but I am getting more and more concerned about it as time goes by. It clearly is spreading rapidly throughout the world the community of MSM with an estimated doubling time of about seven days; my concern is that we are all seeing some spray into the non-MSM communities such as the recent is very much bothering me is the continued plans to have MSM and gay pride galas at the same time that we are having acceleration of COVID as well as outbreaks of monkeypox (see above my conversation with Jen Ashton) I got my usual follow up call from Kevin O'Connor regarding the President's condition. He is concerned that his viral load is going in the wrong direction, namely, his CT value went from 18/16 to 16/14. He called me together with Walter Reed ID physician Wes Campbell to see if I agreed with them that they should not restart Paxlovid since the president does not have any new symptoms and his oxygen saturation is 98%. His chest is clear despite the fact that he has his typical nagging cough that antedated his illness. I agreed with them that they should not start a second course of Paxlovid. The administration will announce tomorrow that they are appointing a monkey pox Coordinator (Bob Fenton) and a Deputy Coordinator (Demetre Daskalakis). Clearly the response or at least the perception of the response of the government to monkeypox has not been good. They are hoping to reinvigorate the response by this appointment. Tonight, Kevin Munoz (WH Comms) called me and he asked me if it was OK to put a quote in the press release supporting this decision. The White House feels that because of my street credibility with the gay community that this would make the choice more acceptable. I agreed and provided a brief quote. Overwhelming evidence of benefit of vaccines and boosts: July 2, 2022 *****Important debate going on that relates back to the conflict that I had with the CDC I was concerned that they did not call for antigen testing following infection before someone is able to go back out into society. The president got infected, went on Paxlovid, and then rebounded. And so the question is when can he go back into society. Since he is the president and we test them every day he is staying isolated until his antigen test reverts to negative. At the same time, a number of papers including in the NEJM have shown that the median time of reversion to negative antigen test is actually five days and many people stay positive until day 8,9,10 and beyond. The CDC recommendations say that after five days since no requirement is made for testing (which I was very much against this decision and caused a ruckus by disagreeing with the CDC many months ago), A person can go out into society after five days with the mask so long as they have no symptoms. And after 10 days, if they still have no symptoms they can take their mask off. This obviously Will lead to people going out into society who are still antigen positive and are likely spreading the virus. That was my original concern when I disagreed with the CDC. BA.5 now 86% of isolates in USA: A lot of activity working with Rob at the FDA and Ashish and CDC to get the right messaging about recommendations for the booster in the fall. The FDA would like to say that the bivalent BA.5 boost is significantly better then the mono valent ancestral strain boost. There is a lot of pushback from the immunology community led by John Moore saying that the bivalent BA.5 boost is only marginally better then the monovalent ancestral strain. The data is somewhat confusing as explained below in an e-mail from Rick Koup to me. The debate is whether to ask people who are otherwise that low to moderate risk to get vaccinated now with the ancestral strain will wait until September when a supposedly much better boost is available. Most of us have no problem with low risk people waiting, however, I and others are concerned about overselling that the bivalent boost is much better then the ancestral boost, which is not the case I will list a couple of emails below that outline the dilemma: From: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Sent: Monday, August 1, 2022 6:53 PM To: Califf, Robert <RMC001@fda.hhs.gov> Cc: Murthy, Vivek (HHS/OASH) <Vivek.Murthy@hhs.gov>; Kessler, David (HHS/IOS) <David.Kessler@hhs.gov>; O'Connell, Dawn (OS/ASPR/IO) <Dawn.Oconnell@hhs.gov>; Ashish.K.Jha@who.eop.gov <ashish.k.jha@who.eop.gov>; Salcido, Dori A. EOP/WHO <Dori.Salcido@who.eop.gov>; Barclay, Lisa L. EOP/WHO <Lisa.L.Barclay@who.eop.gov> Subject: Follow-up of our call Rob: The point that I was making during the zoom call was that we should get the data which I believe is available that looks specifically at the titer of neutralizing antibody against BA.5 induced by the bivalent BA.5 boost versus the title of the neutralizing antibody against BA.5 induced by the monovalent ancestral boost. The reason I say we need that data at hand is because if we are going to say that the BA.5 bivalent boost is far superior to the ancestral boost and that is the reason should wait for it until the Fall, we better make sure that we have data that substantiates that. This is important, since there are people out there saying that the BA.5 variant boost is really not that much different from the monovalent ancestral boost when you compare neutralizing antibody titers against BA.5. If the data show that the BA.5 bivalent boost is only marginally better than the ancestral monovalent boost, we should say that the bivalent is “somewhat” better and not make it look like the bivalent is a major advance. Having said all of that, I still believe that the scenario that we agreed upon as delineated in your not to me is sound. I just do not want us to oversell how good and different the bivalent boost will be because this will trigger pushback from the immunology community. Best regards, Tony ------ From: Koup, Richard (NIH/VRC) [E] <rkoup@mail.nih.gov> Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2022 9:08 AM To: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Cc: Lane, Cliff (NIH/NIAID) [E] <clane@niaid.nih.gov> Subject: RE: Follow-up of our call Hi Tony, Sorry about not getting back to you earlier. I don’t know why I didn’t see this on my cell phone this morning. There is no question that the bivalent BA4/5 will probably do better against BA4/5 than the current ancestral boost. This is based upon circumstantial evidence, some of which is presented below. (Mouse immunogenicity, infection with omicron). The actual human data do not exist yet. The best we have is from John Beigel in the mix and match study, which shows only a marginal increase in BA4/5 neut titers, and which Peter Marks decided not to present at the VRBPAC, probably because the data did not support his desired outcome. I think the problem is that the FDA wants to say that they have a better vaccine coming. Instead, they should be saying that if people need vaccination now they should get the vaccine now. As with all vaccines, they will be rolling out updated vaccines as they become available and when there are data to support the change. People in need of vaccines now should not delay in hopes of getting a “better” vaccine. John Beigel can share his data with you. Best, Rick Richard A. Koup, MD Acting Director Chief, Immunology Laboratory Vaccine Research Center, NIAID, NIH Tel: 301-594-8585 Fax: 301-480-2779 rkoup@mail.nih.gov Had my twice daily follow up conversation with Kevin O'Connor regarding the condition of the president. The POTUS continues to remain with minimal an unchanged symptomatology characterized by fatigue and his usual post nasal drip related cough. It is still rather concerning that his CT levels are still very low and have not come back reflecting a very high viral load. We maintain the decision discussed above about not treating a lab test and only reinstituting therapy if he has an exacerbation of symptoms. I emphasized that he must be followed closely for return of significant sxs, which might trigger retreatment. August 3, 2022 Spoke with Kevin O’Connor. POTUS stable, but still Ag positive. ------------------------ Monkeypox spreading globally: My comment in NY Times article by Sheryl Stolberg: “Centering the response operation at the White House gives the administration more flexibility to coordinate efforts across a range of agencies that might be involved, including FEMA, the Health and Human Services Department and the Department of Homeland Security. It also creates a designated team that has no responsibilities other than to combat monkeypox — a move that makes sense”, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Mr. Biden’s chief medical adviser. NY Times keeps hammering HHS for slow response in getting vaccines out to the community for monkeypox. Article by By Sharon LaFraniere, Noah Weiland and Joseph Goldstein: NYT: “U.S. Could Have Had Many More Doses of Monkeypox Vaccine This Year” I met with Rino Rappuoli in my office today. They are planning to make him the chief scientific officer of a pandemic preparedness program by the Italian government in Sienna. Rino wants me, either before or after I leave the NIH to help them in an official way to set-up their program. I gave an interview with Nate Silver about a book that he's writing about risks in society. Rand Paul together with Roger Marshal, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson is holding a “hearing” on origins with the witnesses: Richard Ebright (Lab Director Waksman Lab. Of Microbiology, Rutgers), Kevin Esvelt, (Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences MIT Media Lab) and Steven Quay (CEO, Atossa Theapeutics) all totally non-credible. Angel Rasmussen is blasting them on twitter as hacks. Once per year the minority are allowed to call a hearing and so Paul et al are using this as a publicity stunt. The majority has not even showed up. It is a total farse. I got a follow-up from Chase Crawford from my legislative staff who listened to the hearing and the result was expected in which Ebright came out strong saying that we did do gain of function and that I lied Quay also said that. However Esvelt said that some may call this gain of function whereas other scientists would say it's not since gain of function is such an ill defined term. He came the closest to reality. The rest of them would just pounding away that NIH funded gain of function and it likely caused the outbreak and that I lied saying that we did not. COVID: August 4, 2022 The Wrap: Fox News host Tucker Carlson continued to imply that infectious disease expert and White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci somehow is responsible for creating the coronavirus pandemic during Wednesday night’s episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” *****Critically important issue with CDC. Usual problem The CDC surprised us all by announcing that they are going to come out tomorrow with an updating of their guidelines across several areas including how one addresses getting back in to the public after a bout of COVID. The updated recommendations that they give are really inherently inconsistent. A number of things about them are troublesome, but the one that really stands out is the fact that they say that if you are infected you must isolate for five days and if you decide to test and have tests available you cannot go out into society with positive tests until after day 10. If you test negative for two days in a row within the 10 day period, you can go out into society but you still have to wear a mask until day 10. Importantly and disturbingly, if you test positive on day 10 since you have already reached the 10 day mark you can then still go out into society without a mask!!!! On the other hand, if you decide not to test at all, on day five you can go out into society with a mask and then on day 10 after day 10 you could take the mask off without knowing whether you're positive or not. This seems just so inherently inconsistent that it's going to be very difficult to explain that to the public. When Ashish heard that this was going to be announced tomorrow he demanded that Rochelle brief us on it tonight. When she did it became clear that the above contradictions existed (see above). Prior to that meeting, Rochelle called me up during the day and tried to explain what they were doing and it immediately didn't make any sense to me. I called up Cliff and he agreed with me. They seem to think that a positive test on day 10 doesn't necessarily mean that you're dangerous to go out into society because you should really be not infective after day 10 when in fact if you have a documented positive antigen test on day 10 all the data indicate that you definitely are transmissible since a positive antigen test means that you have replication competent virus. And so, the recommendations for those who cannot test because they don't have access to test are inherently contradictory to the recommendations for those who can test. This is going to drive Ron Klain completely crazy. In fact, Ashish called me up and said that Ron Klain is already so furious with Rochelle (even before he has heard this) that he fears that her job is in serious danger. Covid perhaps plateauing: POTUS continues to improve: William Patrick Connelly, Jr who threatened me and my family goes to jail. This is the guy yhat Brett Rowland tracked down. See Washington Post article: West Virginia man sentenced for threats against Fauci, officials Thomas Patrick Connally, Jr., was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison COVID cases: United States • Total Cases: 91,676,264, 7-Day average: 117,351 (-7.3%) • Total Deaths: 1,027,370, 7-Day average: 378 (-4.9%) • Total new hospital admissions: 5,078,893, 7-Day average 6,112 (-4.4) Worldwide [Source: WHO] - most recent day • Total Cases: 578,142,444 ( 972,954 new) • Total Deaths: 6,405,080 (2,491 new) PRESS: MSNBC Black/Hispanic Journalists Fireside chat with Alicia Menendez; August 5, 2022 Met with Hans Kluge – WHO Regional Director for Europe. He is seeking my advice on multiple issues such as COVID, MPX, and vaccine related polio. He said the Europeans rely very heavily on my opinion: Heard from Rochelle last night. Latest decision is that they wil hold off on the above announcement. Had meeting with Bruce Tromberg, Rochelle, Robbie Goldstein and CDC folks together with FDA folks (Rob Califf and team) and Steve Sha to try to get an agreement about guidelines for testing for isolation/quarantine when to stop isolation/masking, etc. We are coming to an agreement that is not perfect, but that is workable. Had another Zoom with the same team + Dawn O’Connell to explain to her our POTUS still positive on day 7 following rebound. ****Had a really major victory today resulting from a great collaboration between FDA, CDC, BARDA, me and John Beigel who was responsible for the design of a trial that would confirm that the study published in the journal Vaccine in 2015 by Frey et al and Bob Belshe showed that 1/5 the dose of the MVA monkey pox vaccine administered intradermally was as effective as a full dose of the subcutaneous administration. When we made this known to Bavarian Nordic (BN), lower level marketing people in the company objected strenuously, very likely because they saw this as a diminution in the need for full doses. Amazingly, they distorted the data and tried to marshal congressional support for blocking the use of the doses in the 1/5 dilution intradermally. This was an egregious attempt to interfere with the sound public health maneuver. To make a long story short when John Beigel showed all the data from the 2015 paper come it became clear that this was a very important way to expand the number of doses that were available. We finally got the leadership of BN to agree to continue to ship us the doses since their lower level people as indicated above were trying to block shipment in order to prevent us from distributing the vaccine in the 1/5 dilution. After much discussion with the FDA, we finally convinced them to issue an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the administration of the MVA vaccine in the1/5 intraderma; dilution. This is a major victory for the prevention of monkey pox because it turns 300,000 doses into 1.5 million doses and 1,000,000 doses into 5,000,000 doses. I consider this one of the major victories that I was a part of in trying to expedite the response to monkey pox. PRESS: WTOP Podcast with Luke Garrett & Megan Cloherty; CNN with Erica Hill; MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell; August 6, 2022 Continued drama now involving Larry Horowitz calling me up talking about how angry Ron Klain is at Rochelle for wanting to come out with a statement that the vaccines do not protect against infection at all. I have to look at the data but I think that although protection against true infection is low to modest at best, it is not zero and so I cannot figure out, and I am sure that this is what is bugging Ron, why the CDC needs to put that statement out now exactly at the time when we are pushing people to get the new BA.5 variant in early to mid-September. August 7, 2022 (Sunday) Long conversations with the CDC team (Sherri Berger; Rochelle), Steve Sha, Vivek, Kessler to get the wording correct on the condition to end isolation regarding testing and masking. August 8, 2022 For some time now the issue of ”Long COVID” has been gaining momentum with much frustration in the community since recent studies showed that up to 20% of people develop more COVID following infection. Senator Tom Kaine (D-VA) has been a strong advocate for support since he is suffering for well over a year from long COVID characterized by dysesthesias. The NIH has been given $1.15 Billion to study long COVID. However, I have been very disappointed in the initiatives that have been brought forth under the leadership of NHLBI with Gary Gibbons and Amy Patterson as well as Walter Koroshetz. Rachel Levine is now been given the leadership for this at HHS. Recent description: Politico: Tim Kaine has long Covid. That’s not moving Congress to act. While Kaine and other Democrats in the House and Senate are pushing for action, they have failed to gain meaningful momentum due to lack of GOP support. We had important conversations with activists James Krellenstein, Gregg Gonsalves, Peter Staley and Emily Bass regarding MPX vaccination. Peter alerted me today that James and other activists are concerned about misrepresenting the effective of the 1/5 approach to Jynneos (see above). I put together a hastily arranged Zoom at 12:45 PM to get us together and figure out what the problem is. The problem is that the activists are concerned that the data are not strong that 1/5 the dose of Jynneos intrasdermally (ID) will be protective. their argument is a bit inconsistent since the antibody titers induced by Jynneos ID are exactly equivalent to a full dose delivered subcutaneously (SC). The activists do not seem to be concerned about the efficacy of the SC dose, but they are concerned that we might be overselling the efficacy of the 1/5 dose. This may be an example of their making the perfect being the enemy of the good. It is much better to have some vaccine rather than no vaccine and so we needed to settle what their concern was since the FDA will be issuing tomorrow an EUA for the 1/5 ID dose. I got the activists on the zoom with Cliff, John Beigel, and me and we hashed it out. Peter Staley was agreeing with us and we finally got James and Gregg to come to the agreement that it is best to go ahead with the 1/5 ID program at the same time as trying to get data with a clinical trial that John will do as to the efficacy. That is better than having not enough doses and having a 5 minute notice getting the activist community together with my team to try and straighten out a potential disagreement. We had another zoom discussion with the HHS team led by Sherri Berger (CDC) to try to get the precise language for the CDC updating of their website discussion of the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing infection and transmission (see above). I believe that we got it right after a very good discussion among the group. The critical issue was to indicate that the vaccine protection against infection and transmission is only modest and diminishes with time. The concern was on the part of the White House that the CDC would say that it was zero. Now this is not really a consideration since the wording indicates in a positive way (by my suggestion) that although the protection against infection and transmission wanes overtime, that is a good reason why we encourage people to get the updated BA.5 bivalent boost. I believe we avoided a confrontation between the CDC and the White House which would have endangered Rochelle PRESS: Interview with Giuseppe Sarcina of Italian newspaper – Corrierre Della Sera; August 9-11, 2022 Global – 585,086,861/6,422,914; USA – 92,426,945/1,030,777 Cases and hospitalization plateauing but deaths still at ~300-400/day Had a wonderful trip to Seattle where I received the honorary “Hutch” award from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center and the Seattle Mariners baseball organization. I did a fireside chat at the Medical Center with Larry Corey and then threw out the first pitch that evening for the Mariners and New York Yankees baseball game. In contrast to the disastrous pitch at the Washington Nationals game two years ago, this was a perfect pitch to the manager of the Mariners, Scott Servais, who served as the catcher. Sat in the “owner’s box” at the stadium and watched the game. Had a great conversation with Eddie Vedder (lead vocalist and guitarist for the rock band Pearl Jam.) and his wife Jill. Eddie reminds me a lot of Bono. One of the things that was striking about the evening at the ball game was that when they announced me as receiving the award with giant pictures of me on the photocam, I received a prolonged standing ovation from 45,000 people in the stands. Yet, the far right as exemplified by the newspaper The Washington Examiner put on YouTube the headline “Fauci booed at Mariners game. They put the microphone next to about five or six people out of 45,000 who were booing and saying I should go to jail and they completely ignored the 45,000 people that gave me a prolonged standing ovation. This is so exemplary of the distortion of reality by the far right. Monkeypox continues to surge: August 12, 2022 Deaths seem to be up a bit at around 400/day! August 13, 2022 More drama with regard to the CDC and Rochelle Walenski. After much going back and forth between the CDC and the other docs including me, Vivek, Steve Cha, and to some extent David Kessler, we thought we had gotten them pulled back from making the statement that the vaccines were not effective at all in preventing infection and transmission. The reason this is an issue is that if they came out with that statement, which in fact is not entirely true since there is some degree of modest but declining protection as you would expect, then this would conflict with the statement and effort of recommending that people get the updated bivalent BA.5 vaccine in September. In addition, it would undermine the DoJ’s efforts at mandates for vaccines under certain circumstances. In any event, the CDC agreed to pull back on the statement of absolute lack of efficacy of vaccines against infections and transmission and take a more measured approach of saying that the vaccines provides only modest and waning efficacy against infection and transmission and that is why we should heed the advice of getting the updated booster in Sept. However, although they did this on their website, the MMWR that cam out yesterday had the same original damning language. When Larry Horowitz and Ashish noticed this, Larry went off the wall and in a somewhat agitated manner called me up this AM and said that this is the last straw and he was sure that when Ron Klain gets back from Spain this weekend he would fire Rochelle. Ashish was more measured and seems to have come to the conclusion that sooner or later (maybe not right now) Rochelle would have to go. Let us see what happens…..probably nothing August 14, 2022 Had a wonderful dinner last night at the extraordinary home of Adrienne Arsht at 9 Chevy Chase Circle, Chevy Chase, MD. Guests included Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave (Chairman. Light of Healing Hope Foundation and former war correspondent), Jonathan Capehart (MSNBC and Washington Post), Pamela Melroy (former astronaut and Deputy Administrator, NASA), Sen Bill Nelson and Wife Grace (Administrator, NASA), Vivian Salama (WSJ – war correspondent), Jonathan Goodrich (Attorney, Interior Department). 35,000 cases of MPX globally: August 15, 2022 Great disparity of COVID deaths comparing USA and other countries: PRESS: The Shade Room (Online streaming); The Grio TV; August 16, 2022 I had a very important and moving conversation with Ron Klain in his West Wing Office today at 11:45 AM (bright, sunny, mild day). I announced to Ron that I would be stepping down from all of my positions including chief medical advisor to the President. I will make the announcement next week and my date for stepping down will be sometime in December of this year. One of the concerns that Jeff Zients and I had would be that Ron would want to push back on my leaving giving all the trouble that he's having with the CDC. However, he somewhat surprised me by saying that his instinct would be to push strongly to convince me not to leave, given that he considers me “one of the most important public servants in the history of the country” given that I have saved millions of lives over the last several years. He would be almost embarrassed trying to convince me to change my mind about something that I obviously have thought about for some time and that I thoroughly deserve. He went on to say so many nice things that I was embarrassed. He said that he considered it a major privilege in his life to have had the opportunity to work with me both during the Obama administration with Ebola and now with COVID and monkey pox. He said that he would arrange tomorrow for me to either see the president if the president comes to the White House tomorrow; if he does not come to the White House then arrange a phone call between me and the president tomorrow. It was a most moving meeting the extraordinary praise shown towards me and the sincere appreciation for all that I have done for the country and the world during my long career. He sounded extremely sincere. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NIH will write a Science Forum on NIH accomplishments in COVID. Below is a preliminary outline of what will be said. I added a mention of the role of the COVID - 19Prevention Network (CoVPN) in the clinical trials of all the vaccines: Key COVID-19 Milestones – NIH High-level COVID-19 Accomplishments January 10: The genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was released, which was used as the blueprint for the rapid development of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Blurb: SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence released Image: Ask Palladian for timeline image January 13: NIH and Moderna finalized the design of a vaccine candidate and began working to produce it. Blurb: NIH/Moderna finalized COVID vaccine candidate design Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nihgov/50047466123/in/album-72157713108522106/ January 31: The United States declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. Blurb: U.S. declared COVID-19 a public health emergency February 25: NIH launched the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT) series of studies with a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the antiviral remdesivir in adults hospitalized with COVID-19 (ACTT-1). Press release Blurb: NIH launched trial of the antiviral remdesivir Image: https://www.shut terstock.com/image-photo/remdesivir-covid19-liquid-medicationbackground-1706609728 March 11: The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Blurb: WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic March 16: The Phase 1 clinical trial started for the investigational vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, codeveloped by NIH and Moderna. Press release Blurb: NIH/Moderna COVID vaccine Phase 1 clinical trial started Image: 3.16.20 Phase 1 Moderna April 17: NIH launched the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) initiative, a public–private partnership focused on developing treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. ACTIV streamlined the process for adding new agents into trials and rapidly deployed existing NIH networks of more than 620 trial sites across the U.S. and internationally. The initiative evaluated over 800 therapeutic agents and prioritized 33 for inclusion in ACTIV master protocols. Six of these agents have shown compelling evidence of benefit in randomized clinical trials. Press release Blurb: NIH launched ACTIV, a public-private partnership to develop treatments and vaccines Image: 4.17.20 ACTIV April 21: After convening a panel of academic and government experts to critically review and synthesize available data from clinical trials and other study reports, the first NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines were published to provide clinicians with guidance on how to care for patients with COVID-19. The panel has issued more than 50 updated editions since April 2020 and the guidelines have been visited more than 30 million times. Press release Blurb: NIH published the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines April 29: NIH launched the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative to speed innovation leading to reliable diagnostic testing. Press release Blurb: NIH launched RADx initiative to speed innovation in diagnostic testing Image: 4.29.20 RADx May 22: Preliminary peer-reviewed data from the ACTT-1 trial indicated that the antiviral drug remdesivir is safe and improved clinical outcomes for hospitalized adults with COVID-19. Press release Blurb: Antiviral drug remdesivir found safe and effective. Image: https:// www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/medication-prepared-people-affected-bycovid19-1731814354 May 24: NIH created a public COVID-19 OpenData Portal to openly and quickly share COVID-19-related drug repurposing data and COVID-19 variant-specific effects against all approved drugs. It was a key resource for the ACTIV Tracking Resistance And Coronavirus Evolution (TRACE) efforts. Blurb: COVID-19 OpenData Portal shares data on drug repurposing and variant effects with drugs. Image: 5.20 COVID Data Portal variants July 8: NIH launched the COVID-19 Prevention Network (COVPN), a clinical trials network to test COVID-19 vaccines and other prevention tools. Press release Blurb: NIH launched COVID-19 Prevention Network to test COVID vaccines and treatments. July 27: The Phase 3 clinical trial started for the investigational vaccine mRNA-1273, co-developed by NIH and Moderna. The trial enrolled approximately 30,000 adult volunteers who did not have COVID-19. Press release Blurb: NIH/Moderna COVID vaccine Phase 3 clinical trial began, enrolling ≈30,000 adult volunteers. Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/covid19-vacci nation-asian-male-patientgetting-1831245058 August 4: NIH launches the first ACTIV clinical trials to test the safety and efficacy of treatments both for mild and moderate COVID-19 patients and for patients hospitalized with COVID-19. ACTIV-2 press release, ACTIV-3 Press Release Blurb: First ACTIV trials to evaluate the safety and efficacy of COVID therapeutics begin. Image: 8.4.20 ACTIV trials September 16: Recognizing the need to ensure inclusive participation in vaccine trials, NIH launched Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities. CEAL provided outreach and engagement opportunities in racial and ethnic minority communities disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. (In 2021, NIH supplemented the effort with $29 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan). September press release Blurb: NIH launched CEAL to ensure diversity in vaccine trials and reach out to disproportionately affected communities. Image: 9.16.20 CEAL September 30: NIH expanded research to improve COVID-19 testing among underserved and vulnerable populations as part of the RADx initiative, the RADx Underserved Populations (RADxUP) program. Press release Blurb: NIH expanded RADx initiative to improve COVID-19 testing in underserved populations. Image: 9.30.20 RADx UP October 2: Quidel Sofia 2, the first point-of-care test to detect COVID-19 supported by NIH’s RADx initiative, receives emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA. Blurb: First RADX-supported COVID test received EUA. Image: 2.2.20 Test Kit December 11: The ACTT-2 trial found that baricitinib, an anti-inflammatory drug, reduced time to recovery for people hospitalized with COVID-19 who were treated with remdesivir. Press release Blurb: Trial results showed remdesivir in combination with anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib reduced hospital recovery time Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/medication-prepared-peopl e-affected-bycovid19-1970653763 December 15: The first over-the-counter COVID-19 test, developed with support from NIH’s RADx initiative, received an FDA emergency use authorization. Blurb: First RADx-supported over-the-counter COVID-19 test received EUA. Image: 12.15.20 RADx OTC December 18: FDA authorized the NIH-Moderna vaccine for emergency use for people 18 years of age and older. The NIH-Moderna vaccine went on to receive authorization for various age groups and is now available for everyone over the age of 6 months. Blurb: FDA grants EUA to NIH/Modera vaccine Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/cracow-malopolskie-poland-october10-2021- 1891094320 January 5: NIH’s RADx launched an interagency variant task force to evaluate the impact of new variants on the performance of all authorized point of care and over the counter diagnostics, as well as tests in pre-authorization review. This ongoing partnership with FDA informs regulatory decisions, RADx investments, manufacturer designs, and government procurements. Blurb: Interagency variant task force launched to evaluate impact of variants on COVID tests Image: 1.5.21 variant tests January 20: The ACTIV Tracking Resistance and Coronavirus Evolution (TRACE) initiative launched. It is focused on identifying emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2. TRACE aims to prioritize which viral variants should be studied to determine the effectiveness of vaccines and therapeutics, coordinate data sharing, and report results regularly to allow confident decision making by the U.S. Government, health professionals, and pharmaceutical organizations. Blurb: The ACTIV Tracking Resistance and Coronavirus Evolution (TRACE) initiative began to identify, evaluate, and report on emerging variants. Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nihgov/52129878815/in/album-72157713108522106/ February 27: FDA authorized the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. NIH supported the development of the single-shot vaccine, which does not require special refrigeration. Blurb: FDA grants EUA to Janssen COVID vaccine Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/izmir-turkey-january-17-2021-coronavirus1925271767 March 31: In collaboration with the CDC, NIH launched an innovative community health initiative called “Say Yes! COVID Test” for counties in North Carolina and Tennessee to determine if frequent self-administered COVID-19 testing can help residents reduce community transmission. Say Yes! COVID Test went on to distribute 6.8 million rapid tests that were developed with RADx support in numerous targeted areas throughout the country. Press release Blurb: NIH launched community health initiative Say Yes! COVID Test to assess frequent selftesting. Image: 3.31.20 Say Yes COVID Test April 15: NIH announced the Safe Return to School Diagnostic Testing Initiative, which awarded up to $48 million over several months to fund projects to build evidence on safely returning students, teachers, and support staff to in-person school in areas with vulnerable and underserved populations. (Additional funds issued July press release). April press release Blurb: NIH launched Safe Return to School Diagnostic Testing Initiative Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/side-view-portrait-yo ung-africanamericanman-1967011807 August 4: Part of the ACTIV initiative, an NIH-supported clinical trial showed that treating moderately ill hospitalized COVID-19 patients with a full-dose blood thinner reduced their need for organ support, such as mechanical ventilation, and improved their chances of leaving the hospital. Press release Blurb: ACTIV-4 clinical trial found that a full-dose blood thinner improved outcomes for moderately ill hospitalized patients. September 15: NIH announced $470 million in funding for a nationwide study of tens of thousands of people to support research on the long-term effects of COVID-19 called the NIH REsearching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative. Press release Blurb: NIH funded REsearching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative to study COVID’s long-term effects. Image: Can we use this image from the timeline? NIH Strategic Response to COVID-19 | NIH COVID-19 Research October 9: Brii Biosciences filed for an FDA emergency use authorization for the ACTIV-3 monoclonal therapeutic antibody combination amubarvimab/romlusevimab that demonstrated clinical effectiveness in preventing progression of disease for mild to moderate COVID-19 patients. Blurb: ACTIV-3 trial found monoclonal therapeutic antibody combination effective in preventing disease progression in mild to moderate patients. October 27: NIH announced the Independent Test Assessment Program (ITAP), which established an accelerated pathway to support FDA evaluation of tests with potential for large-scale manufacturing. The program is an extension of the NIH RADx initiative. In less than two months, the first two over-the-counter tests that went through the ITAP accelerated pathway received EUAs, contributing millions of tests per month to the domestic supply. Press Release Blurb: NIH announced ITAP, an accelerated pathway to support FDA evaluation of COVID tests. Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portland-usa-feb-5-2022-closeup2118748202 January 26: The NIH clinical trial on booster doses of different COVID-19 vaccines to determine the safety and efficacy of mixed vaccine regimens found that all combinations of primary and booster vaccine resulted in increased neutralizing antibody levels. The data strongly suggest that mixed COVID-19 vaccines could increase protective efficacy against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Press release Blurb: NIH clinical trial data strongly suggest that mixed COVID-19 vaccines could increase protective efficacy against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Image: FC getting his vaccine? https://www.flickr.com/photos/nihgov/50747919667/in/album72157717478402642/ OR https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/black-teen-girl-showsvaccine-mark-1899903244 June 2: Topline results from the ACTIV-1 Immune Modulators clinical trial showed that immune modulator drugs improved survival for people hospitalized with COVID-19. Press release Blurb: ACTIV-1 immune modulators trials meet secondary endpoint/improved survival July 20: The CDC recommended that Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine be used as another primary series option for adults in the United States ages 18 years and older. NIH supported development of the Novavax vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, and is studying it in the “mix & match” trial, where adult volunteers who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 receive booster doses of different COVID-19 vaccines to determine the safety and immunogenicity of mixed boosted regimens. Blurb: CDC recommended Novavax vaccine for adults Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/novavax-coronavirus-vaccine-d octorsnurses-hands-1904970715 April 29: Two years after its launch, RADx-supported companies increased cumulative U.S. capacity by >2.5 billion tests, helping drive a national paradigm shift where over the counter (home) and point of care tests become the dominant form of testing. Blurb: After two years, RADx-supported companies increased U.S. capacity by >2.5 billion tests Image: 4.29.22 RADx test capacity Monkey pox cases in the UK starting to trend downward: August 17, 2022 E-mail from Ron Klain after I met with him and asked to speak with the POTUS: From: Klain, Ronald A. EOP/WHO <RK.COS@WHO.EOP.GOV> Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2022 10:19 AM To: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Cc: Goepfert, Stephen M. EOP/WHO <Stephen.M.Goepfert@who.eop.gov> Subject: [EXTERNAL] RE: Thank you Tony, Sad for me, sad for America, but no one has earned it more. The President is anxious to speak with you today – he travelled to Delaware last night. I am copying Stephen Goepfert here, who is with the President in Wilmington, to arrange the timing for your call. Ron I just had a wonderful conversation with President Biden. He called me up (started the conversation with “Hi, Joe here….”) and told me how much he admired me and how much of a pleasure it was to work very closely with me over the past year and three quarters. He told me that he wanted to guarantee that I would have as much protection as I need for as long as I need it. I told him how much I enjoyed working with him and that I was actually thinking of leaving government at the end of the last administration. However, when he became president and offered me the job as his chief medical advisor it was a job that I absolutely could not refuse. I also told him that working with him over the last two years was the capstone of my career. He was quite moved by that and seemed to be very pleased with hearing that. PRESS: Interview with Rolling Stone (Matt Sullivan) regarding story on Steph Curry August 18, 2022 Global – 590,659,276/6,440163; USA – 93,124,238/1,034,118 ---------- CDC (Rochelle Walensky) comes out with a strong statement of “mea culpa” admitting that the CDC is broken and has failed terribly in the response to the COVID pandemic. LONG OVERDUE! CDC Moving Forward Fact Sheet. NY Times (La Franiere and Weilland): Walensky, Citing Botched Pandemic Response, Calls for C.D.C. Reorganization Among other flaws, public guidance during the coronavirus pandemic was “confusing and overwhelming,” the agency said. ------------------------ RFK, jr continues his destructive ways: Ars Technica: Anti-vaccine activists giddily celebrate as poliovirus spreads in NY -------- I defend CDC and Rochelle regarding their admission of their botched response by commending them for honesty and trying to reform. I did this on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell. PRESS: MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell; Podcast “In the Bubble” with Any Slavitt; CNN – “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer August 19, 2022 Cases seem to be plateauing throughout the country with some exceptions. Perhaps we are coming into a downswing as we enter the Fall PRESS: Interview with Marissa Evans of LA Times on racial disparities in MPX; WTOP Radio; August 20, 2022 Had my usual every three-week zoom meeting with Drs. Li and Hellmann. I explained to them that as of Monday at 11:00 AM when I made the announcement of my stepping down from the NIH, I will enter a new chapter in my career and in my life. There's obviously stress and anxiety associated with this decision. However, there's also excitement for the new adventure and unknown. Had a wonderful Zoom meeting with Nathan Chen at 12:30 PM. He had been wanting to meet me for some time now and we finally connected by zoom. He was so modest and nice and kept expressing what an honor it was to meet me and speak with me. He is going into his third year at Yale having taken off most of two years to practice for the Olympics where he gave probably the most historically perfect performance to win the gold medal. He plans to go to medical school after he graduates. I was struck by his maturity and modesty when I asked him why he was interested in medicine. He said all his life he had been practicing to make himself better and better and better, but it was all about himself. Now he wants to do something that has a positive impact on society and on other individuals. The sign of a very mature young man. I had a very long (1 hour and 10 minue) exclusive interview with Yasmeen Abutaleb (Washington Post) concerning my upcoming stepping down from Government service. Embargoed until Monday at 11:00 AM August 21, 2022 Interesting trivia (Sports Business Journal): Dr. Anthony Fauci’s First Pitch Sets Baseball Card Record By Tom TaylorJuly 28, 2020 • • • Topps has issued a trading card of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, throwing out the first pitch of the MLB season last week. The card was only available for 24 hours, under the company’s Topps Now brand, but it set a new record with 51,512 sold. August 22, 2022 TODAY IS THE DAY! I announce that I will be stepping down from the NIH as well as from my position as chief medical adviser to the president effective December, 2022. There has been a literal avalanche of positive feedback about my announcement with hundreds and hundreds of texts and emails of congratulation and praise for me. President has come out with a statement as have a number of other prominent individuals. See the president statement below: Statement from President Joe Biden on the announcement of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Departure from NIAID AUGUST 22, 2022•STATEMENTS AND RELEASES During my time as Vice President, I worked closely with Dr. Anthony Fauci on the United States’ response to Zika and Ebola. I came to know him as a dedicated public servant, and a steady hand with wisdom and insight honed over decades at the forefront of some of our most dangerous and challenging public health crises. When it came time to build a team to lead our COVID-19 response – in fact, in one of my first calls as President-elect – I immediately asked Dr. Fauci to extend his service as my Chief Medical Advisor to deal with the COVID-19 crisis our nation faced. In that role, I’ve been able to call him at any hour of the day for his advice as we’ve tackled this once-in-a-generation pandemic. His commitment to the work is unwavering, and he does it with an unparalleled spirit, energy, and scientific integrity. Dr. Fauci has served under seven Republican and Democratic Presidents during his career, beginning with Ronald Reagan. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 under President George W. Bush. For almost four decades, he has served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, helping our country navigate health crises ranging from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. Because of Dr. Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved. As he leaves his position in the U.S. Government, I know the American people and the entire world will continue to benefit from Dr. Fauci’s expertise in whatever he does next. Whether you’ve met him personally or not, he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work. I extend my deepest thanks for his public service. The United States of America is stronger, more resilient, and healthier because of him. Statement of Sec. Becerra: Statement by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on Upcoming Departure of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Today, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. announced he is stepping down in December 2022 from the positions of Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as Chief Medical Advisor to the President. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra issued the following statement: “This is a decision we all knew would eventually come but hoped never would. As HHS Secretary, I am privileged to know Dr. Fauci professionally and personally and deeply admire his decades of public service that have undoubtedly improved the health of millions of people globally. When I arrived at HHS, the world was one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. I quickly came to rely on Dr. Fauci’s wisdom and counsel in our response, and along with his scientific acumen, I treasure his ability to break down complex science in simple terms to the American people to save lives. “His selfless passion to bring hope and healing to people fighting for their health knows no bounds. In fact, Dr. Fauci’s pioneering approach to tackle public health decades ago included a critical role in our nation’s domestic and international response to HIV/AIDS, ultimately helping create the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. “I will be sorry to see Dr. Fauci depart in December, but I wish him all the best in his future endeavors and look forward to witnessing his next chapter.” Larry Tabak statement: Statement from Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D., on the departure of Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Today marks the end of an era with the announcement by Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., that he will be stepping down as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, and Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden. Tony’s departure will cause a tectonic shift in the modern history of the National Institutes of Health. He is the model public servant — dedicated and selfless, and a brilliant scientist and physician who is passionate about developing treatments and cures for those who are sick and suffering. He has dedicated his life’s work to advancing knowledge about the causes of complex diseases ranging from HIV to asthma, rarely satisfied with anything less than a cure. For Tony, it’s personal. He works tirelessly on behalf of all patients, often at great personal expense, and always bringing his Brooklyn tenacity to the fight. I know of no one more dedicated than Tony to the mission of the NIH and the health of the American people. Tony’s NIH career spans 54 years, 38 of those leading NIAID, advising seven U.S. Presidents, and reassuring the public as America’s doctor during outbreaks of infectious diseases, from HIV to Ebola to COVID-19. Without exception, he is always guided by the science. It’s been an extraordinary privilege and honor to have worked by his side and to have learned so much from him — I will miss him greatly. But I also look forward to seeing what Tony will do next. I have no doubt that he will continue to have an enormous impact on the world. Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D. Performing the Duties of the NIH Director Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH @AshishKJha46 Tony Fauci is the most consequential physician scientist of the past half century Having served 7 Presidents through HIV/AIDS, Anthrax, H1N1, Ebola, Zika, and of course COVID Thousands consider him their mentor, including me Grateful for your service to our country Dr. Fauci Ronald Klain @WHCOS I cannot think of a public servant who has done as much to save as many lives for as long a period as Dr. Tony Fauci. And he is a gem of a person. Tweet See new Tweets Conversation Barack Obama @BarackObama I will always be grateful that we had a once-in-a-century public health leader to guide us through a once-in-acentury pandemic. Few people have touched more lives than Dr. Fauci – and I’m glad he’s not done yet. PRESS: Beautiful article in the Washington Post by Yasmeen Abutaleb: Fauci plans to step down in December after half a century in government By Yasmeen Abutaleb Updated August 22, 2022 at 2:20 p.m. EDT|Published August 22, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. EDT NY Times by Cheryl Gay Stolberg: Fauci Says He Will Step Down in December to Pursue His ‘Next Chapter’ MSNBC with Rachel Maddow (Rachel was extremely laudatory) August 23, 2022 NY Times Opinion piece by Gregg Gonsalves is really nice: OPINION GUEST ESSAY Anthony Fauci’s Retirement Marks the End of an Era , 5:00 a.m. ET PRESS: WTOP with Nick Iannelli; CNN “New Day” with Kaitlan Collins; WGN Bob Sirrott Show (Chicago Radio); Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Radio); FOX News “Live” with Neil Cavuto; BBC Newsnight TV; NPR “All Things Considered” with Mary Louise Kelly August 24, 2022 The number of texts and e-mail of thanks and praiseupon the announcement of my stepping down are stunning, ranging in the several hundreds. I am getting truly exhausted trying to answer all of them. ----- NEWS CLIPPING — WASHINGTON POST — CONDENSED (1 SOURCE PAGE) “Jill Biden rebounded after a course of Paxlovid just the way I did!! -------- Cases slowly (very slowly) coming down: Very nice article about me and retirement in Nature: ‘He has saved countless lives’: US…” Perspective by Robin Givhan Senior critic-at-large|Follow August 23, 2022 at 7:10 p.m. EDT With all of the praise and adulation that I'm getting from so many sources, the far right GOP keep saying that they're going to investigate me after I stepped down even though there's absolutely nothing to investigate me about; they are looking very mean spirited. August 25, 2025 Interesting cartoon in Washington Post concerning my stepping down: We are really not coming down in cases/hospitalizations/ or deaths very sharply. We seemed to have hit a plateau with a very slight trend downward. United States • Total Cases: 93,777,133, 7-Day average: 90,676 (-6.7%) • Total Deaths: 1,037,281 7-Day average: 390 (-11.6%) • Total new hospital admissions: 5,198,924 7-Day average 5,614 (-6.6%) Worldwide [Source: WHO] - most recent day • Total Cases: 596,119,505 (829,163 new) • Total Deaths: 6,457,101 (2,564 new) ------- In Science indicating how Tucker Carlson was ranting about me after hearing of my stepping down: Almost everything Tucker Carlson said about Anthony Fauci this week was misleading or false Science fact-checks the Fox host’s rant against “Saint Tony,” who announced his retirement on Monday • 25 Aug 2022 • 6:10 PM By Jon Cohen Tweet from Bill Gates: Tony, you were an amazing public servant long before COVID-19 struck – and now you are a hero to millions of people, including me. npr.org Fauci to step down in December after decades of public service Dr. Anthony Fauci helped guide the U.S. through the COVID crisis, and earlier in his career played a key role in the response to AIDS. He has served under seven presidents. The Soapbox Quoting the New Republic: We May Never See Another Lifelong Public Servant Like Anthony Fauci In a distinguished government career spanning more than half a century, he expertly steered America through two devastating pandemics. But given how Republicans have maliciously attacked him, why would anyone want to follow in his footsteps? PRESS: Bloomberg News with David Westin; Spectrum News Los Angeles with Giselle Fernandez; August 26, 2022 Dan Diamond story in the Washington Post: Health House panel: Trump sought to pressure FDA on covid vaccines, treatment The report offers fresh details about that campaign and how it rattled agency officials. This panel report documents the attempts of Peter Navarro and Hatfill to undermine me and get me fired since I pushed back on Hydroxychloroquine: https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/2022.08.24%20The%20Tru mp%20White%20House%E2%80%99s%20Relentless%20Attacks%20on%20FDA%E2%80%99s%20Corona virus%20Response.pdf PRESS: London Times Radio with Carole Walker; Gray TV interview; August 29, 2022 Previous 2 days my daughters and partners were here for the weekend. Very slow with regard to COVID. Clearly people like John Moore (who is the most reasonable) and Paul Offit (not so much) are pushing back on the drive to boost people in September with the “updated” BA.5 bivalent since they say that boosters are not needed (Offit) or that the original vaccine is as good as the bivalent (Moore) Ashish Jha called me today asking advice on when to give the POTUS the bivalent BA.5 boost. I told him 3 months after his recent infection. Same for the First Lady. ------- Monkeypox cases starting to plateau – probably a combination of behavioral modification + vaccine availability: Statement from Tedros: Then, on my friend, Tony, Tony Fauci. We have been friends for many years. I respect him dearly and greatly. He’s an incredible scientist, amazing human being and congratulations to him for all the job that he has done. I know retirement doesn’t mean he will stop working. Retiring for him is like changing a tyre, meaning another mission, and I look forward to continue working with him closely through other things he will, I know, continue to do. So, I wish him all the very best. Tony is so special and everybody knows, I think. With COVID, we are still doing worse with deaths than any other country: PRESS: Interview with Swiss newspaper -Finanz und Wirtschaft; August 30, 2022 USG (FDA) getting ready to issue EUA for BA.5 bivalent boost PRESS: JAMA Interview with Editor-in-Chief Kirsten Bibbens-Domingo; August 31, 2022 NY Times Opinion piece by Ari Schulman (rather critical of me): Why Many Americans Turned on Anthony Fauci

We had a 1 hour meeting today with all the relevant members of HHS (CDC, NIH, BARDA, ASPR, etc. ) led by deputy secretary Andrea Palm to work out the departmental approach towards the Ebola outbreak in Uganda. The NIH’s (NIAID) major role will be to provide 100 doses of the Sudan specific ebola vaccine from our VRCfor Uganda. In order to go through the proper diplomatic channels, Dr. Tedros (DG of WHO) wrote me an official letter requesting that I send our hundred doses to Uganda (see below): Director_National Institute of Allergy a

We had our 9th annual meeting today with Bill Gates in the context of the NIH-Gates Foundation collaboration on multiple projects. In the course of the meeting they showed to my surprise film clips of Bill Clinton, Tedros, and Slim and Quarraisha Karim thanking me for my many years of service. I should comment here on the really close relationship that I've developed over the years with Bill Gates and the mutual respect we have for each other. We also joined by the common issue of the conspiratorial theorists out there who think that Bill and I are doing strange things like putting chips in the vaccines that we're trying to get them to receive. It's the source of fun jokes between Bill and me. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) called me today to wish me well and to tell me how much he has enjoyed over the years working with me. He congratulated me for my “extraordinary service to our nation over decades”. Four astronauts visited the Clinical Center today and the Children’s Inn. The said that the one “must thing” that they wanted was to meet me and so I went over to the Medical Board meeting on the 4th Floor and met with and took photos with them: Thomas H. Marshburn, Kayla Barron, Matthias Maurer, Mark T. Vande Hei Just met with the German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach who has become somewhat of a friend in that every time he is in DC he wants to come and see me. He values my advice and says that I am a “rock star” in Germany. Also, at the meeting was German Ambassador to USA Emily Haber. PRESS: CBC News Canada (TV); Washington Post Exit Interview with Blair Guild;