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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 'Marks hs.gov I Booster we (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