A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Mar. 19, 2020 - >200,000/~10,000; USA - 9026/150; 2900 new. Italy >31,000 In the USA testing: ~70,000 tests with ~10% positive Met yet again with POTUS right before the press conference, which did not include me since it was predominantly an FDA issue with Steve Hahn. POTUS excited about making drugs (Chloroquine, Remdesivir, etc.) more accessible. Therapy was the theme of the day. They actually were going to go too far (see above) and make them all available on compassionate use. I convinced them not to. POTUS was hot to give out chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine since Jeff Ellison thinks that it is a great drug. Steve Hahn did a good job in stressing the need for safety and efficacy data. Katie Miller and Kelly Love are trying to not overload me and particularly Katie is sensitive to my time. Call with Gilead regarding remdesivir studies and supply PRESS: Marc Levin Radio; PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff; Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan; CNN Town Hall with Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta; NBC Evening News with Lester Holt
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Mar. 20, 2020 - Another day at the WH. Important TF meeting and press conference. During the day, Gov. Cuomo had a press conference that he wanted me on to join him, but I could not since I did not want to do a press conference outside of USG and the WGH would not let me do it anyway. Cuomo took a gigantic step forward. 90% of the new infections in the USA are now coming from NYC and Westchecter, but mostly NYC. Cuomo is essentially shutting down all non-essential activity in the city.. 100% of non-essential workers must stay at home and not intermingle. I strongly praised Cuomo for doing this at the Presser after the TF. We met with the POTUS (as usual) in the Oval. The theme of the presser will be the fact that we are now having only essential travel to Canada and Mexico, and IMPORTANTLY, no aliean/immigrants can enter the countrywithout proper papers from Canada or Mexico, although the order is clearly aimed at Mexico. The rationale is that we are shutting down entry to USA from China, South Korea, Iran, Europe and UK/Ireland and yet people from these same countries are crossing over from Mexico. If some are infected and we take them in, we put them in facilities including with unattended children, we could have another cruise ship situation. The decision relly was a public health decision. LAST NIGHT, Katie and Steve miller called me up and explained why the CDC order to do this was given (CDC was essentially told by state and DHS to do it). They wanted my support to emphasize that this was a pubic health decision and not an anti-immigrant decision. I believe that they have a good point. During the presser, the reporters continued to ask me about the free distribution of Hyrdoxycholorquine (HC) , which the POTUS wants, and my statements that the evidence to do this is purely anecdotal and there is no convincing evidence by an RCT that either HC ro remdesivir works. After the presser the press went wild saying how I again contradicted the POTUS and I received hundreds of e-ails of people thanking me, even though I did not intend to or like the idea of contradicting POTUS, but I need to stick with the science. They also had a tweet that went viral of me holding me head seemingly in disgust as the POTUS was talking. That wa not my intention. Most important part of the day and disturbing was my conversation with Mark Meadows and Marc Short together with Deb Birx Meadows praised me for a while and then got to the point. He wants me to consider the tone that I say that HC has no evidence of efficacy. I told him that I cannot compromise my scientific principles. Tough conversation. He wa being a gentleman, but he wanted me to go to a place that I would not go. 200; deaths 9800 Even more disturbing was the conversation where he wanted me to support the idea of lifting the mitigation restrictions after the 125 dya periods since if we do not do this, Mark fees thatwe will trigger a depression (not just a recession). Mark Short agreed with him, but seemed much more sensitive to the fact that I did not want to get into that kind of situation that would use my credibility to sell an economic and a political issue. After I left the office, Mark Meadows called my cell and said that afterhe looks at some modelling, he would like to sit down with me and figure out how we can resolve this issue. He did ask me directy, if I thought we needed to extend the mitigation program beyond 15 days and I said yes. He seemed to accept that. There certainly is more ahead. I called a meeting at my house with Cliff lane, Chrsitine and me to discuss how to handle this as we go forward. I cannot and will not compromise acting on my good judgment. However, I can understand Marks dilemma with the economy. There will be more discuss. Also, had conversation by phone with Governor John Bell Edwards of Louisiana who has ~400 cases in NOLA and wants my advice about how aggressive he should be and maybe copy NYC. He has already closed all the bars and restuarants. I told him to look at the inflection of the curve over the next day or so and contact his Commissione of Health. It the curve is steep, he should consider mandating only essential work and everyone else stays homw, but not quite yet. Also, Petrer Staley, Mark Harrington, James Krellenstein and others called late at night and told me that they had a bad situation in NYC where the desire to do many tests was eating up PPEs that were needed by HCWs who were taking care of COVID-19 patients. The implored me to speak out that ony necessary testing should be done, i.e. on hospitalized patient and those with sxs not in hospital, and not just anyone who wants a test. They sounded desparate that NYC would un out of PPEs within the next 7 days. I will bring this up to TF tomorrow. PRESS: CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell; FOX with Bill Hemmer; WH Press Conference; Major Washington Post Profile on me
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Mar. 22, 2020 (Sunday)- Cases continue to soar. 30,000 in USA with 400 deaths; Italy still escalating. My please to the TF regarding needing desparately to get PPEs and other supplies to NYC seems to be working since FEMA in pusing stuff to them. 250,000 tests now done not counting those from hospitals and medical centers Press is going wild with me. Front page in Washintgton Post yesterday and Op Ed by Maureen Dowd in NY Times today about me and my relationship with the POTUS. Profile by Peter Nicholas on me in The Atlantic. I am trying in several articles and on TV to clarify that the POTUS is tsalking about hope for therapies although there are no good data, while I must stick to the science and so fundamentally we are approaching this from different, but not conflicting standpoints. The press are crucifying the POTUS for "not listening to me and making crazy statements about "game-changing" therapies and praising me fot stivking to my guns. ORACLE (Larry Ellison - a bit of a loose cannon) . Mark Meadows wants CDC, FDA and me to help put together by 5:00 PM tomorrow an on line site for tracking availability of drugs like Hyroxychloroquine and Remdesivir and making these drugs available via a physician. Bad idea, but it will happen. I will go with this as long as it does not interfere with the conduct of RCTs. Cliff Lane helping out but employing NLM and NCATS people. I am giving him full authority since I have absolutely no extra time given what I am doing already. Also, Jared and Mark are very skeptical about the CDC modesl about the trajectory of the outbreak and what can be predicted regarding timing of modification of the mitigation. They want to see the data before they believe the models and get CDC out of the business of doing this alone and making policy - good for them - it is about time. I am getting Cliff to get MIDAS people in on this. Press conference (I did not attend) after the virtual TF meeting. POTUS went into detail with very granular numbers of all the things USG (mostly FEMA) is doing regarding sending masks, PPE, other equipment to high risk locations (Washingto State, CA, NYC, etc.) On TV programs, FEMA Pete Gaynor did not look good since he did not have any idea how many ventilators and other equipment was available. POTUS went on and on 3,300/391; new about all the things that we are doing. Very rambling and disorganized as he ad libs his speech I would have advised against this, since we are still getting calls that many locations do not have enough of anything. Also, they are talking about the now hundreds of thousands of tests that are out there and being done. However,as I have always said, testing for the sake of testing without reason only consumes PPEs of the people administering the tests. Looking at the presser from home on computer has made it clear how self-congratulatory the POTUS, VP and others appear on the stage. Title 42 enacted - use of National Guard to help. Role out of telemedicine without reguations so that people do not have to leave the house to interact with their physician. A lot of promises - I hope we can back them up. PRESS: CBS Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan; Multiple print features
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Mar. 24, 2020 - 392,000/17,000; 45,000/550 in USA. Cases still soaring in NYC. COVID Cases 3.24.20 powerpoint Incredible intrigue going on with people (likely WH staff) feeding total lies to media about the frayed relstionship between me and the POTUS. This is really bad stuff. I am getting calls from media (Reuters) saying that a source told them that the POTUS was screaming at me and being abusive about the issue of HC treatments. Total nonsense. See below. Typical of many aryicles over the past few days: In order to save Dr. Fauci, we must destroy him Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is a study of calm and competence in the middle of a pandemic. Which makes him an endangered species, working as he does for a )20, 5:25 p.m. boss who is notoriously insecure and made his name shouting "You're fired!" on a reality TV show.
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2020-03-25 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Mar. 25, 2020 - 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
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Mar. 26, 2020 - Global - 414,000/18,400; USA - 68,600/1000; NYC 20,000/280. Continued pressure regrding POTUS aspitational goal of wanting to open up on Easter Sunday. Cases now coming into NIH with several staff infected. Admissions to the SCSU Received another of now several calls from Gov. Andrew Cuomo wanting guidance on interpreting the trend of new cases/day and what this means to predictions of where the outbreak is going in NYC. Had the usual good and warm/friendly conversation. He and Chris Cuomo are becoming friends. Also, we discussed his and my relationship with Trump. CRAZY, CRAZY - donuts are being named after me; T shirts have my picture on them and are being sold; San Francisco radio is dedicating a song to me - Curtis Mayfield singing "Keep on Pushing"; coloring pictures with crayons for my picture, face time with Trevor Noah; Instagram with Steph Curry Color me Fauci.docx 'Feed News Reporter Steph Curry Had An Instagram Live Chat With Dr. Fauci About Coronavirus That Was Super Informative Barack Obama and Justin Bieber posted some emojis. Tasneem NashrullaBuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on March 26, 2020, at 3:04 p.m. ET • Tweet COVID-19 Os. WITH DR. FAUC #SCASKSFAUCI QsA elie I THURSDAY, MARCH 26 _ 10AM PT / 1PM ET ra) FOLLOW @STEPHENCURRY30 ON INSTAGRAM 10 TUNE IN • Share • Copy The journalists at BuzzFeed News are proud to bring you trustworthy and relevant reporting about the coronavirus. To help keep this news free, become a member and sign up for our newsletter, Outbreak Today. can s stephencurry30 - Watch my LIVE story w Dr.Fauci (the GOAT) @niaid He's answering all of our questions. So grateful. intry in the world Instagram: @https://www.instagram.com/stephencurry30/?hl=en Thousands of people tuned in to NBA star Stephen Curry's Instagram live Q&A with Dr. Anthony Fauci about the coronavirus on Thursday because 2020 continues to be surreal.
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Mar. 27, 2020 - USA now has more cases than any country in the world Global - 542,788/24361 To my surprise yesterday, the POTUS sent a letter to Governors outlining a plan to reopen county by county while moniroring the spread of virus in the low risk counties. This was half-baked and never shown to Deb or I before it was sent out. It was derived by Jared and Kevin Hassett (modeler) and I cannot see how it can be implemented. I am surprised at Jared, who is usually very measured. This is reckless since it would require monitoring with much testing by CDC and they do not even know about it. Poor Bob Redfield is totally out of it. IMPORTANT DAY - There has been a disconnect between what we in the TF have been saying about the availability of PPE (particularly masks) and ventilators and whether the people in the trenchs (ICUs) sare actually getting them. We keep saying that the equipmen is out there and the medical centers just need to get them and the medical centrers are saying that they are trying to get them and either they do not know how or the USG is outbidding them for the equipment. I got on the phone via Cliff's treatment guidelines committee that he is organizing and listened to ICU docs from all over the country. The are very fearful of running out of PPEs within days to a weeks. Ventilators are mostly a NYC issue; they may fall behing and still there is this tension of Cuomo asking for 30,000 vents and USG (us) sayng that the vents are in the warehouses; they just need to get them. I promise the group I would try to fix this nonsense. At the TF meeting, I took over and said we really have to stop this shit and fix this. We are acting like these people have everything they need and the fact is they do NOT. I was very empnatic and the VP (good for him) listened. We had FEMA (Pete ) and Adm Pete on the screen and the Adm acted like a rigis navy officer saying thsat they did their job and got the vents and PPEs to the warehouse and now it is up to the locals to get it distributed. I essentially said that this is bullshit and we need to communicate to them how they can actually get the material. I asked is it our job to just check our own boxes or are we trying to actually get the job done in real life. Clearly, Adm Pete is not happy with me, but so what! Hope Hicks, Kellyanne Conway strongly agree with me as does Marc Short and the VP. The VP order to make this happen. Also, the POTU finally invoked the DPA to have GM make ventilators and we are stopping (via me) saying that NYC has enough. Just give them what they ask for and if it is overkill, they they can return them and give to others. Important discussion with Deb Birx that I have some concern about. She is using a model from Chris Murray to plot out how to delay the POTUS from pulling the plug for at least 2 weeks more. Critical issue that I feel strongly about and discussed with Cliff is that if we are going to lift restraints on certain areas, we must have the capability of flooding the system with people to do identification, isolation (out of the home) and contact tracing. Otherwise, we will precipitate a surge as is NYC, NOLA, and other locales. Big discussion coming over the weekend. 700; NYC -- POTUS signed $2.2 Trillion (uo to $6.2 trillion) relief package for the economy to give aid to laid off workers and other vulnerables. POTUS signed bill in the OVAL and actually delayed the signing until I wsa called from the lower West Wing lobby to be there for the signing. When I entered the OVAL the POTUS said, "Anthony, come here with us. I cannot sign this without you being here". The entire crowd in the OVAL including several Senate (McConnell) and House (McCarthy) leaders and Cabinet members present applauded me as I entered. Very embarrassing. I am not comfortable with this attention. After the signinf, the POTUS asked me and others to make comments before the many TV cameras that were let into the OVAL Very laborious press conference where the POTUS rambled on. He wasted the opportunity to just focus on the relief package and went inot his diatribe against previous administrations. SECURITY ISSUES - Threats on the "dark web" abainst me, Chris and the girls. They know everything about us including where my daughters live and work. Strange people hanging around my house and taking photos of the house. DC police now stationed at my house in addition to ISG agents with me all the time. HHS is giving me heavy security with ISG agents (Lonetto et al) guarding me 24 hrs. Agent George Adams assigned to me. PRESS: Bloomdaddy Radio Show - Pittsburgh; Morning News with Brian Haldane Radio Baton Rouge - both right wing radio shows; Press in the OVAl with the signing; some press at the Presser.
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MAR. 28, 2020 (Saturday) - 509,000/23300; USA 104,200/1700; NYC - 26700/450. Cases still escalating. First day with full sceurity Lindsey Graham trying to help. Will go on TV and opush my message of holding off the POTUS to pull the plug too soon. Gov. J.B. Pritzker called with report of death of a 9 month old from COVID-19 in Chicago. Prtiztker concerned that this will generate panic in mothers throughout the USA. May be 1st infant in USA to die of COVID-10 The USNS Comfort taking off from Norfolk, VA to NYC to supply beds and treatment for non-COVID-19 patients in order to free up on shore beds for COVID. Also, the USNS Mercy has already arrived in LA for same purpose The "swag" around me is getting really ridiculous. You can but Fauci T-shirts, mugs, donuts, sweat shirts, candles, pillows, etc. Geeeez!! I do not like this one bit. AMAZING interaction with POTUS. Today Trump tweeted that he was considering quarantining the NY tri-state area (NYC, NJ. CN). This triggered a major news buzz. Gov. Cuomo called me; I was in my NIH office getting ready to do the Saturday TF meeting from the NIH SCIF. Cuomo asked me to help dissuade the POTUS since he (Cuomo) would have to forcibly push back on this and would defy National Guard troops sent to enforce the Q. At the TF meeting we had major discussions lead by VP. I helped convince people that a quarantine was not tenable and that we should recommend to POTUS to do a "strong travel advisory" that the governors would strongly support instead of having the Feds enforce a quarantine. I thought that I was finished for the night and would go home to an evening off when the VP said I should come down to his office and we should, together with Deb, Chad Wolff, Steve Mnuchin, Mark Meadows, Marc Short meet with the POTUS to tell him our recommendation to announce tomorrow. We met with the POTUS in the living quarters (not the OVAL) for about 1 hour. I led the discussions since the POTUS kept referring to me. It was a disturbingly rambling discussion since he kept talking about TV ratings, and HC, and influenza and virtually everything else as I was trying to keep him on track (with the help of the VP). Finally, we got him to agree to "travel advisory" and not quarantine. We wanted to announce tomorrow, but he wanted to tweet this tonight. He also said he wanted to get the Governors on board and so he wanted to call Gov Cuomo (NY), Gov Murphy (NJ), Gov. Ned Lamont (CN). And so, we adjourned to the Lincoln Study and finalized the language for the Advisory right at the Lincoln desk where the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. I kept insisting that they do not slip and let the CDC (from whom the Advisory must come) to use their words of "DO NOT TRAVEL". Also, I insisted through the rambling and lack of attention span that the POTUS explicitly say that this is NOT a quarantine. Finally, he individually called the 3 Governors starting off by saying "I am here with Tony and a few other people....." Cuomo was OK but questioned to be explicit as to just what "Advisory" meant. We go it straightened out and before he went to the other Govs, he called up Sean Hannity to schmooze about TV ratings (I am not kidding). Finally, he got to the other Governors and we stopped for the nigh. Marc Short will work with CDC to get the right language out and the POTUS will tweet this later. I texted Cuomo saying that I had pushed back and we had avoided the quarantine. He responded: "I know that. It wasn't his conscience. He would have made a terrible mistake for the nation. I would have had to organize the Governors to rebel. Last thing we need. Thank you....on behalf of all of us." WHAT A NIGHT!!! uci, disease expert at front lines of Fauci nat PRESS: Desus and Mero Showtime TV;
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Mar. 29, 2020 (SUNDAY) - Cases continue to soar. BIG DAY AT WHITE HOUSE Spent several hours with the POTUS. Bottom line. Deb and I pushed hard to have the POTUS extend the 15 day guidelines for another 30 days to end of April even though Mark Meadows and Kevin Hassett were against this. They wanted to just go to 15 days extra and then re-evaluate. We pushed and said that we would leave to the POTUS. We met with the POTUS in OVAL and Deb and I presented the case for 30 days. He accepted that right away (he really trusts me very much). He decided that he did not want to wait three days to Tuesday to announce and so we Chaotically and quickly wrote into his speech the announcement that it would be 30 days. We had a press conference in the Rose Garden (RG) and he called several times of me and Deb to explain the rationale behind the decision. It was another of the painfully rambling press conferences that lasted on a beautiful evening the RG for 2 hours. POTUS kept on mentioning the potential 1.5 to 2.0 million deaths in the USA due to Coronavirus, which is actually the worst case scenario of a flawed model; however, he felt that if he keeps mentioning that, then the people will take what we are saying seriously. He is incorrigible. At the end of the day it was a good outcome since we convinced him to go with 30 day instead of ending the mitigation prematurely, which I feel would be a disaster. At the presser, I emphasized that we must pay attention to the cities/states/areas with relatively few cases since they could explode just like NYC and NOLA and other cities. CRAZY PRESS - the fringe far-right crazies are cooking conspiracy theories that I am a Hilary Clinton mole trying to destroy Trump. See NY Times - Sunday