COVID-19 Records

June 4, 2021 - Global 171,800,000/3,700,000; USA - 33,100,000/593,400

Tony's Diary Package, pp.763-765 · fauci_diary:entry:00579

Page text: p.763, p.764, p.765 · original PDF

Date
2021-06-04 00:00 (day precision)
Type
diary entry · diary
author
Anthony S. Fauci
Topics
Intelligence community assessmentsNatural origin / zoonotic spilloverLab-leak / accidental release hypothesisChina relations and data accessCongressional oversightWuhan Institute of Virology collaboration
June 4, 2021 - Global 171,800,000/3,700,000; USA - 33,100,000/593,400 • I had my usual every two-week meeting with my English colleagues doctor Chris Whitty and Patrick Valance. The discussion was somewhat disturbing since they seem to be having 2 issues simultaneously in the UK. They were controlling the B.117 variants very well and were preparing to open up. however, the B.1. 617variant appears to be much more effective in transmitting than the B.117. and so they are experiencing a surge of the B 617. They were planning to open up the country , but now they are having second thoughts since they are afraid that the new variant will create a second major surge for them. I will bring this up to our own medical team since we do have a low level of B.1.617 in our own country and if a certain proportion of people (mostly in the red states )do not get vaccinated, we may be faced with the same problem that the Brits are facing. |O • The onslaught against me but the radical right continues. The right wing press is intensifying their attacks on me as well as the right wing congressman and senators. some of the valid press such as the Washington Post , the LA Times , and others are calling out the lies of the far right. POTUS defends me: Kyle Griffin ⁦@kylegriffin1⁩ Pool report: Biden left the room to a shouted question regarding whether he has confidence in Dr. Fauci. Suddenly, POTUS's head peeked around the corner, and he answered: "Yes I'm very confident in Dr. Fauci." 6/4/21, 11:30 AM • I did a kickoff event for the month of action - "We can do this". I did it together with congressman Cedric Richmond who is director of the office of public engagement. We address the people who will be the trusted messengers going out into the community to try and encourage people to get vaccinated. Very important and very strange briefing of me by the CIA in the NIH SCIF this afternoon (5:00 PM). I received an extremely strange an unexpected briefing today by the CIA related to the origin of the virus. Beth Cameron from NSC was listening in on one of the other screens. And as it turns out she was as baffled as I was by the briefing. It was very similar to some of the very disappointing briefings that I had previously received in prior years from the CIA. A young woman whose name was Camille Hartman gave most of the briefing. She was accompanied by what was probably the senior male CIA person and another young woman. Camille in my mind was almost pathetic in her naivety an obvious lack of appreciation of any of the science of what ,000/594.,000 OP she was talking about. She gave instances of things that she said were gotten by CIA intercepts of conversations in China, particularly in Wuhan. her major point was that she feels but the Chinese have not been transparent about what was going on in their labs since there were no reports publicly of what they found out from intercepts. This included the transfer of Pangolin viruses from a group in Beijing two Wu Han. They felt that this was being used in a study using transgenic mice. I have no idea why this was any great concern to them since it would be perfectly natural for a lab that studies coronavirus to look at Pangolins. In addition, she spoke about the observation that WIV was sampling Pangolins and several members of WIV took a trip to obtain Pangolins. They also spoke about the fact that they have information from sources that unknown experiments well conducted by the military in Wu Han. The thing that blew me away about how naive and uninformed they are was the fact that they mentioned that they had word that in July of 2020 there was a super spreading event in China related to passage of virus in the laboratory. This astounded Beth and I for the same reason. Why would they suspect that a super spreading event that occur in the middle of a major outbreak in China was related to the passage of virus in the laboratory? The naivete of the briefing stunned both Beth and me. Also, in the matter in which she was asking me questions almost made me believe she was grilling me prompting me to say somewhat tongue in cheek whether I should have a lawyer with me. I got on the phone with Beth immediately after the briefing and she was very upset saying that she was going to check up the chain who and why this briefing was called and why there was no forwarding material to prepare us for what they were doing. There is something very fishy about all of this. PRESS: BBC Radio; White House regional press (3 stations); Mediaite: Chris Wallace Defends Fauci From 'Highly Political' Attacks: His Lab Leak Emails Contain 'No Smoking Gun' https://bit.ly/3ciVYik

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Extracted statements

Rule-extracted, not adjudicated. The grade says what may be done with each one; read the document above before relying on any of them.

StatementGradeAttributionStance
It was very similar to some of the very disappointing briefings that I had previously received in prior years from the CIA. own voice, substantive speaker_own asserts
She was accompanied by what was probably the senior male CIA person and another young woman. needs context uncertain explicit hedge asserts
Camille in my mind was almost pathetic in her naivety an obvious lack of appreciation of any of the science of what ,000/594.,000 OP she was talking about. own voice, substantive speaker_own asserts
She gave instances of things that she said were gotten by CIA intercepts of conversations in China, particularly in Wuhan. her major point was that she feels but the Chinese have not been transparent about what was going on in their labs since there were no reports publicly of what they found out from intercepts. quoted / not their view paraphrase_third_party third-party reporting verb asserts
I have no idea why this was any great concern to them since it would be perfectly natural for a lab that studies coronavirus to look at Pangolins. quoted / not their view hypothetical conditional framing asserts
In addition, she spoke about the observation that WIV was sampling Pangolins and several members of WIV took a trip to obtain Pangolins. own voice, substantive speaker_own asserts

In context

A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.

  1. 2021-06-02 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
    June 2, 2021 - Global - 170,800,000/3,600,000; USA - 33,100,000/592,200 • I gave a taped speech today to the opening session of the G7 meeting taking place in England. I spoke about the similarities between the COVID-19 pandemic and the HIV aids pandemic. I called upon all partners to collaborate and to continue to support science. Secretary Becerra is representing the United states at the health component of the G7 meeting. Also, in line with my participation virtually in the G7 meeting , I took part in a discussion on the G7 global vaccine confidence summit. It was a discussion together with John Nkengasong, the director of the African CDC moderated by Vivienne Parry. We discussed the issue of vaccine hesitancy in various countries throughout the world particularly in the United states and in southern Africa. Nat Geo film people are also very upset about the shit storm caused by the book people and have come out with a statement that it is their book, not mine and I have not received any royalties or other payments from the book or the documentary. Unfortunately, the damage is already done. • Met with POTUS and VPOTUS in Oval with Jeff Zients and Natalie Quillian. I discussed with him the mechanisms and implications for the mRNA vaccine platform technology. He was very grateful for the discussion and as usual vice president Harris asked excellent questions. He told the story that when he was at Rehobeth beach in Delaware with his family, three burly MAGA-type men approached him and started trash talking him. The Secret Service were very discreet and did not want to make a scene; however his daughter Ashley jumped in front of them and started screaming at them to stay away from her father. The lesson of the story was that young women have more guts and fire then certain Secret Service agents. PRESS:The story on my emails is in the print version of the Washington Post this morning; Month of Action (promo video); Podcast with the George Bush Foundation - All the Best with Sam LeBlond; WGN Donilon Report (Leland Vittert) - was not the original person to interview me and attacked me about e-mails and Wuhan; NPRE "Science Friday" with Ira Flatow; Time Health Summit Interview by Alice Park with Stephjane Bancel; Time Children's Interview; NBC Nightly News; MSNBC with Nicole Wallace; CNN defends me on the e-mails issue: Paul LeBlanc, CNN 00,000/592,800 New Daily Confirmed COVID-19 Cases in the U.S. always very Thousands of emails from and to Fauci during the pandemic's early days were published. Here's what they show about him
  2. 2021-06-02 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
    June 2, 2021 at 8:30 a.m. EDT with Alexandra Ellerbeck Early in the coronavirus pandemic, Anthony S. Fauci expressed skepticism that deaths in the United States would top 500,000. He called the public's fascination with him "surrealistic." And he assured China's top public health official that "We will get through this together." Hundreds of pages of emails obtained by The Post and BuzzFeed News through Freedom of Information Act requests confirm the way Fauci is already viewed by many -- as diplomatic, tactful and responsive to inquiries from the public, a quality which often kept him up late at night answering emails. "The correspondence from March and April 2020 opens a window to Fauci's world during some of the most frantic days of the crisis, when the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was struggling to bring coherence to the Trump administration's chaotic response to the virus and President Donald Trump was seeking to minimize its severity," The Post's Damian Paletta and Yasmeen Abutaleb write. "Fauci's actions during that period and beyond remain an intense focus for many Americans and political leaders," they add. "During daily televised briefings at the White House, Fauci emerged as an at times reluctant -- and polarizing -- media star: To Trump supporters, he was a contrarian who seemed to undermine the president at every turn, while others viewed him as a reassuring voice of reason." "The emails show that he was inundated with correspondence from colleagues, hospital administrators, foreign governments and random strangers -- about 1,000 messages a day, he says at one point -- writing to seek his advice, solicit his help or simply offer encouragement." yst with the dllowing." Here are five takeaways from Fauci's emails. 1. Fauci stayed far away from any Trump-bashing. Trump blasted the public health expert throughout the pandemic, at one point threatening to fire him after the November election. And from time to time, Fauci would criticize the administration's response in interviews, although almost always indirectly (in October, he told The Post the country needed an "abrupt change" in public health behaviors). In Fauci's correspondence, he was even more circumspect. In April 2020, Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, emailed Fauci about some apparent crossed wires before Easter Sunday. At the time, Trump was starting to butt heads with public health officials as he tried to move on from the pandemic. "You correctly noticed the symptoms but misdiagnosed the root cause," Short wrote in a heavily redacted email that closes: "Apologies for a poor poker face." Fauci responded: "Thanks for the note. Understood. I wish you a peaceful and enjoyable day with your family." In another exchange, a former acquaintance wrote to Fauci that "The leadership from the top is utterly lacking and incompetent and dangerous to the American people." "Thank you for your note," Fauci wrote back. "I hear you!" 2. Fauci didn't like the public adoration. "Our society is really totally nuts," Fauci wrote in an email he forwarded, which included the link to an article titled "'Cuomo Crush and Fauci Fever' -- Sexualization of These Men Is a Real Thing on the Internet." On March 31, a colleague at the National Institutes of Health sent Fauci an article from The Post with the headline, "Fauci socks, Fauci doughnuts, Fauci fan art: The coronavirus expert attracts a cult following." "Truly surrealistic. Hopefully, this all stops soon," Fauci replied. In another note, he added: "It is not at all pleasant, that is for sure." 3. Fauci accepted a sort-of apology from the director of China's public health agency. George Gao, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, had been quoted in Science magazine as saying the United States was making a "big mistake" by not telling people to wear masks in spring 2020. Gao, who has long been friends with Fauci, reached out personally to clarify his remarks. 2 School of Public 'as influencing him and ence "I saw the Science interview, how could I say such a word 'big mistake' about others? That was journalist's wording. Hope you understand," Gao wrote to Fauci in a March 28 email. "Lets work together to get the virus out of the earth." "I understand completely. No problem," Fauci wrote back. "We will get through this together." 4. Fauci defended himself to colleagues. In April 2020, prominent oncologist Ezekiel Emanuel wrote to Fauci that he was "perplexed" by his "seeming strong endorsement" of remdesivir. Fauci had publicly praised the antiviral drug, which had appeared effective in treating coronavirus patients. "Was it just a bit forced?" Emanuel wrote. "My reading was the data was weak and in normal times for normal disease it is not enough to approve. And very unlikely to really impact COVID-19 disease pattern- -regardless of supply issues." Fauci resisted the characterization, replying that he didn't "'strongly' endorse it." "I specifically said it was not a knockout drug and was only a baby step in the direction of developing more and better drugs," Fauci wrote. "I said that it was important because it proved in a well-powered, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial that one can suppress the virus enough to see a clinical effect, as modest as the effect was. I do not think I forced anything." In an email the following day, Emanuel sent another email apologizing to Fauci and inviting him over for dinner "on the porch." In another email, Fauci pushed back against Gregg Gonsalves, a prominent Yale School of Public Health epidemiologist, after Gonsalves had appeared to insinuate that Trump was influencing him and other public health leaders. "Gregg: I am surprised you included me in your note," Fauci wrote. "I genuflect to no one but science and always, always speak my mind when it comes to public health. I have consistently corrected misstatements by others and will continue to do so." 5. Fauci corresponded with a wide array of people. He didn't just hear from administration and public health officials. The emails also show exchanges with members of Congress and regular citizens. Fauci certainly didn't answer every single email he received, but the tranche shows he made an effort to respond amid the many demands on his time. "The medical director of the National Football League Players Association asked Fauci for a confidential briefing on how to safely start the next NFL season," Damian and Yasmeen write. Paul LeBlanc, CNN 00,000/593,400 "A documentary filmmaker working on a forthcoming Disney-backed biopic asked to ride along as Fauci drove to work. An adviser to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates expressed concern about Fauci's health. And a senior House Republican told Fauci to 'keep being a science truth teller' despite skepticism about the virus from other GOP lawmakers and Trump himself." "I was getting every single kind of question, mostly people who were a little bit confused about the mixed messages that were coming out of the White House and wanted to know what's the real scoop," Fauci said in a recent interview. "I have a reputation that I respond to people when they ask for help, even if it takes a long time. And it's very time consuming, but I do" respond. Thousands of emails from and to Fauci during the pandemic's early days were published. Here's what they show about him While many federal government staffers prefer the phone to email, this correspondence offers a rare glimpse into Fauci's frantic schedule and polite, to-the-point demeanor during the time he emerged as a rare source of frank honesty within the Trump administration's Covid-19 task force. But they also reveal the weight that came with the role.
  3. 2021-06-03 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
    June 3, 2021 - Global - 171,300,000/3,700,000; USA - 33,100,000/592,800 Numbers continue to come down: • Writeups by CNN and Washington Post regarding my emails are making me look very good. They show that I never criticize president trump and that I am always very king gun' lease of courteous and measured in my responses. Even with that the crazies such as senator Rand Paul are saying things like "I told you so ", implying that my emails are validating what they have been saying about me. Total nut cakes! The right-wing fringe social media are ablaze with anti-Fauci stuff • while all this is going on, incredibly the far right maniacs in certain states such as Arizona are trying to yet again force an unvalidated recount in an attempt to still overthrow the election and reinstate Trump. What is happening to our country ???? PRESS: CNN "New Day" with John Berman; MSNBC - Morning Joe; Washington Post: The alleged Fauci 'smoking gun' emails By Aaron Blake Senior reporter
  4. 2021-06-03 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
    June 3, 2021 at 12:42 p.m. EDT In any case, like most data dumps that have careful redactions, the Fauci email trove has no smokinggun evidence of wrongdoing. You could make the case, as I and others have, that Fauci had certain prejudices and dispositions that were deeply unhelpful in his leadership of the pandemic response -- and you'll find evidence of those here. He had a very strong bias against existing drugs and for new and experimental ones. He has been slippery on masks and clearly was willing to say things in public that he thought "helped" the response even if they weren't strictly true. New York Post: Trump tears into Fauci after release of early COVID emails
  5. 2021-06-04 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci
    June 4, 2021 - Global 171,800,000/3,700,000; USA - 33,100,000/593,400 • I had my usual every two-week meeting with my English colleagues doctor Chris Whitty and Patrick Valance. The discussion was somewhat disturbing since they seem to be having 2 issues simultaneously in the UK. They were controlling the B.117 variants very well and were preparing to open up. however, the B.1. 617variant appears to be much more effective in transmitting than the B.117. and so they are experiencing a surge of the B 617. They were planning to open up the country , but now they are having second thoughts since they are afraid that the new variant will create a second major surge for them. I will bring this up to our own medical team since we do have a low level of B.1.617 in our own country and if a certain proportion of people (mostly in the red states )do not get vaccinated, we may be faced with the same problem that the Brits are facing. |O • The onslaught against me but the radical right continues. The right wing press is intensifying their attacks on me as well as the right wing congressman and senators. some of the valid press such as the Washington Post , the LA Times , and others are calling out the lies of the far right. POTUS defends me: Kyle Griffin ⁦@kylegriffin1⁩ Pool report: Biden left the room to a shouted question regarding whether he has confidence in Dr. Fauci. Suddenly, POTUS's head peeked around the corner, and he answered: "Yes I'm very confident in Dr. Fauci." 6/4/21, 11:30 AM • I did a kickoff event for the month of action - "We can do this". I did it together with congressman Cedric Richmond who is director of the office of public engagement. We address the people who will be the trusted messengers going out into the community to try and encourage people to get vaccinated. Very important and very strange briefing of me by the CIA in the NIH SCIF this afternoon (5:00 PM). I received an extremely strange an unexpected briefing today by the CIA related to the origin of the virus. Beth Cameron from NSC was listening in on one of the other screens. And as it turns out she was as baffled as I was by the briefing. It was very similar to some of the very disappointing briefings that I had previously received in prior years from the CIA. A young woman whose name was Camille Hartman gave most of the briefing. She was accompanied by what was probably the senior male CIA person and another young woman. Camille in my mind was almost pathetic in her naivety an obvious lack of appreciation of any of the science of what ,000/594.,000 OP she was talking about. She gave instances of things that she said were gotten by CIA intercepts of conversations in China, particularly in Wuhan. her major point was that she feels but the Chinese have not been transparent about what was going on in their labs since there were no reports publicly of what they found out from intercepts. This included the transfer of Pangolin viruses from a group in Beijing two Wu Han. They felt that this was being used in a study using transgenic mice. I have no idea why this was any great concern to them since it would be perfectly natural for a lab that studies coronavirus to look at Pangolins. In addition, she spoke about the observation that WIV was sampling Pangolins and several members of WIV took a trip to obtain Pangolins. They also spoke about the fact that they have information from sources that unknown experiments well conducted by the military in Wu Han. The thing that blew me away about how naive and uninformed they are was the fact that they mentioned that they had word that in July of 2020 there was a super spreading event in China related to passage of virus in the laboratory. This astounded Beth and I for the same reason. Why would they suspect that a super spreading event that occur in the middle of a major outbreak in China was related to the passage of virus in the laboratory? The naivete of the briefing stunned both Beth and me. Also, in the matter in which she was asking me questions almost made me believe she was grilling me prompting me to say somewhat tongue in cheek whether I should have a lawyer with me. I got on the phone with Beth immediately after the briefing and she was very upset saying that she was going to check up the chain who and why this briefing was called and why there was no forwarding material to prepare us for what they were doing. There is something very fishy about all of this. PRESS: BBC Radio; White House regional press (3 stations); Mediaite: Chris Wallace Defends Fauci From 'Highly Political' Attacks: His Lab Leak Emails Contain 'No Smoking Gun' https://bit.ly/3ciVYik
  6. 2021-06-04 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
    Jun 4, 2021
  7. 2021-06-05 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
    June 5, 2021 Global - 172,200,000/3,700,000; USA - 33,200,000/594.,000 40th anniversary of the first cases of AIDS reported in MMWR - a lot of appropriate attention is being paid to the 40th anniversary. There were several articles in the press recounting the early days and focusing on my role . I did a number of print and TV and radio interviews. The attacks on me continue to ramp up. Trump planning on blasting me during his speech tonight at a Republican party gathering. PRESS: Caught in crosshairs, Fauci calls GOP descriptions of his emails 'profoundly misleading' ren Global - USA ind Daniella Diaz, CNN 00,000/594,800 ns
  8. 2021-06-06 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
    June 6, 2021 - Global - USA Today I fly up to New York City with first lady doctor Jill Biden to promote vaccinations among the African American community. We will be visiting the Abyssinian church in Harlem. The vicious assault on me continues . Most recently House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has called for me to be fired. What an amazing coward he is. The entire extreme right wing republican group in the House and Senate have completely sold their soul to the infinitely lying ex president trump. • I spoke with Jeff Zients this morning and he told me that Ron Klain told him that President Biden is 100% behind me (see above).
  9. 2021-06-07 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
    June 7, 2021 - Global - 173,000,000/3,700,000; USA - 33,200,000/594,800 • Eventful day - I went to New York today with first lady doctor Jill Biden for two reasons: 1st )to visit the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem in order to thank them for setting up a vaccine clinic and to encourage them to continue to advocate for young people to get vaccinated. I flew up with the first lady on one of the Air Force planes assigned to the White House and had a great conversation with her on the plane up as well as on the plane down. She is an amazingly natural and one person with whom I believe we have now started a good friendship. The people at the Abyssinian church or extremely kind to me in saying how much they appreciated that I was there and all of them wanting to take selfies with me. We stayed at the Bowery hotel at the interface between Chinatown and the Bowery. i was surprised that we picked the hotel Since where we want to go for the TV hit the following morning was way Uptown. Brett Rowland and I had a great Italian dinner at the Primi restaurant in the Bowery. The following day the first lady and I appeared together on the Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest Show (KABC). It was very lighthearted and enjoyable. Another very important aspect of the day is that as I was getting ready to take off with the motorcade from the White House on the way to Andrews Air Force Base, the president came walking down the back alley , the Secret Service called me out of the car , and the president put both his hands on both my shoulders and said "I just want to tell you that I am behind you 1000%"; and he repeated again "I am behind you 1000%." He said "those people are crazy they have no idea what they're talking about and just don't pay any attention to them." • Back to the dark side. Scott Gottlieb had appeared on Face the Nation and mentioned in an attempt to help me then I had actually gone to Europe in Jan/Feb. 2020 to brief health New Daily Confirmed COVID-19 Cases in the U.S. =] ite) 7TM [=] [=] 7" TM~ ra - = oS uhh 1.2 Sta Sit GEE TUL Gi mzyg Trg rEg uo Tels refs itis Otis etre Cin Fal Ere ZEyE STE 2020/2021 00,000/595,300 ministers about the possibility that the virus could have been constructed an escape from the laboratory. He did this to indicate that I was not hiding anything because I already knew that this was a possibility and so I didn't change my mind currently by saying that a lab leak is a possibility since I was talking about it openly back then. As it turns out, he was a little bit mixed up because on January 31st, 2020 I received a call from Jeremy Farrar who conferenced in Christian Andersen to tell me that Ed Holmes and Christian had seen a copy of the sequence of the virus and felt that there was a possibility that because of the unusual furin cleavage site that this could possibly have been a constructed virus. as indicated in my notes of January 31st and February 1st , 2020, since I am not an evolutionary biologist I called together by phone a group knowledgeable scientist together with Francis Collins and a few other people to discuss this. After a considerable amount of discussion about half of the people felt that this was possibly a constructed virus and the other half were convinced that this was a natural occurrence. A few weeks later Christian Andersen got together with Bob Garry and Andrew Rambaut to examine this more carefully and they came to the conclusion that they were convinced that this. was a natural occurrence and a jump from the animal reservoir. They published their data in a preprint server in February followed by a nature paper in March of 2020 . That is the reason why it appears that a I briefed people which I did not . I was briefed by them . Scott had said that I had briefed a group of international health people he seemed to have gotten some of the story wrong , but overall he was correct. Cases continue to come down:

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