A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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September 9, 2021 - Global - 222,400,000/4,600,000; USA - 40,500,000/652,500 >160,000 infections today President gave his national speech today on the 6th part plan to combat the delta variant. As mentioned above I played a role and editing his speech and in discussing yet with the president himself yesterday as well as with Jeff and the White House team. PRESS: Podcast with David Rubenstein; Fireside chat with The Boston Globe; NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt; PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff; CNN "AC360" with Anderson Cooper;
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Sept. 10, 2021 PRESS: NBC News Now (Online TV) with Savannah Sellers; Regional TV -RaleighDurham (Jonah Kaplan); St. Louis (Cory Stark); Little Rock, AR (Mitch McCoy); "The Skimm (Alex Carr); Politica Ya Unvision (TSi-Tsi-Ki Felix); Telemondo (Julio Vaquiero) Great review of the documentary "FAUCI": The Heavy Burden of Being Dr. Anthony Fauci MISGUIDED HATE The new documentary "Fauci" follows the infectious-disease expert--the COVID-19 adviser to Trump and Biden--throughout the pandemic, probing his deepest thoughts and fears. Nick Schager Updated Sep. 10, 2021 5:28AM ET / Published Sep. 10, 2021 4:51AM ET National Geographic for Disney+ "It reduces my trust in humanity" is how National Institute of Health (NIH) nurse and bioethicist Dr. Christine Grady describes her feelings about the abuse heaped upon her husband, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in Fauci. For those who've grown frustrated with their unvaccinated fellow citizens' egotism, stupidity, and recklessness, it's a familiar and relatable sentiment, and one that colors John Hoffman and Janet Tobias' documentary (in select theaters Sept. 10) about the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Driven by interviews with Fauci himself, it's an insightful portrait of a man who's dedicated his career to helping solve some of the world's most serious disease-related crises, as well as a celebration of the selfless courage, compassion, and open-mindedness of a physician who's stood tall in the face of unjust vilification and threats. Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Lou Dobbs (remember him?) all appear in Fauci, slamming the doctor in various disgusting ways and, in the process, stirring up opposition to the very figure most responsible for guiding the nation through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. When Fauci describes recently opening an envelope that covered him in white powder, and the immediate thoughts that ran through his head--is this a hoax, anthrax or ricin?--Hoffman and Tobias' film underlines the constant and immediate danger that Fauci is now in, thanks to a percentage of the population that views him as the embodiment of both the pandemic and the social restrictions required to mitigate it. He's at the center of a Republican-led maelstrom born from ignorance and insanity, and as he remarks about the global catastrophe that's still unfolding, "I think we're going to get through it, but we're going to get through it in spite of this divisiveness, and this politicization. We're not going to get through it because of it." Fauci's opinion is offered up in the context of Fauci's look at the 1980s-1990s AIDS crisis that consumed the doctor, and which was finally wrestled under control via a combination of good medicine, staunch activism, and two opposing sides learning that collaboration was more productive than combativeness. Peter Staley and other AIDS activists from that era speak candidly about their fight for AIDS attention and action, primarily through the Larry Kramer-led AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), which aggressively made noise in public and scientific spaces in order to oppose prejudice and demand help. Convinced that the government wasn't doing enough to research and treat the fatal disease--which was largely decried as an affliction that plagued only gay men and women--they saw Fauci as a bureaucrat who didn't care about the sick and the suffering, and castigated him accordingly. As Fauci himself explains in a lengthy interview that forms the core of Fauci, he heard that condemnation but soldiered on anyway. Breakthroughs regarding the identification of AIDS as a virus, and how to effectively stymie its growth through a cocktail of drugs, were earned through countless hours of work, and in an environment that became increasingly hostile thanks to the fury of those who were losing loved ones to the disease, and vehement that more could be done to save them. In what would be a turning point in the AIDS fight, in Fauci's life, and in the history of medical science, Fauci chose to listen to those voices, attending an ACT UP meeting where he went toe-to-toe with his critics, and then speaking on their behalf at a 1990s AIDS conference in San Francisco. In doing so, he charted a new course in which the experiences and input of subjects were taken into greater consideration during clinical trials. Fauci makes plain the parallels between Fauci's "bookending" battles against AIDS and COVID-19, along the way depicting a man who's given his life to the investigation and treatment of the world's worst ailments. Sandwiched in between those two all-caps epidemics were his clashes with SARS, Swine flu, MERS and Ebola, against which he led the charge. In a telling moment in Hoffman and Tobias' nonfiction biopic, Fauci says that he sought to destigmatize Ebola by hugging recovered patient Nina Pham at a press conference, and such leadership-through-example is again seen in a late clip of him receiving the COVID-19 vaccine on a stage in front of cameras. Time and again, the individual presented by the film is one who puts others first and takes risks in order to guide and reassure the American public. "Time and again, the individual presented by the film is one who puts others first and takes risks in order to guide and assuage the American public." He's also a scientific titan who, having served as adviser to seven presidents (beginning with Ronald Reagan), isn't afraid to deliver unpleasant truths that many--including his bosses--don't necessarily want to hear (or, at least, don't want to hear said into a microphone). Clips of Fauci ruffling Trump's feathers by pushing back on his hydroxychloroquine nonsense, and setting out a realistic timetable for a vaccine, reconfirm this point, painting him as an honest, candid grown-up in a milieu that's full of selfinterested officials who'd prefer to tell people what they want to hear. It's clear that he's made mistakes over the course of his tenure; The New York Times global health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli highlights, for example, Fauci's confusing mask messaging. Yet the fact that Fauci has now been labeled all manner of undeserved things by right-wing anti-science loons--at great emotional cost to him, his wife Christine, and their three daughters--only accentuates his bravery, resilience, and staunch adherence to reason and evidence. Global USA Since no amount of logical arguments, cajoling or bribery will change the minds of zealous conspiracy theorists, Fauci probably won't convince skeptics that the NIH bigwig is a paragon of public service. Nonetheless, through a mix of archival footage and interviews that smoothly segue between the past and present, Hoffman and Tobias' documentary proves a tribute to a legitimate national hero, one whose ambition and resolve are as great as his empathy and thoughtfulness. Even when it skews a bit too heavily toward lionization, the lasting impression left by Fauci is that we're lucky to have this 80year-old man on our side.
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Sept. 11, 2021 Increases in cases starting to taper. Still 150,000-ish, but hospitalizations and deaths decreasing slightly from prior week 20th anniversary of 9/11 - Multiple memorials occurring in New York , Pennsylvania , and at the Pentagon. Starting with the president's announcement of the six point plan yesterday, there has been the expected pushback and objection from Republican congressmen and senators. In addition, There appeared yesterday in the publication "Intercept" a story about the typical gain of function issue regarding NIAID granting and the Wuhan lab. It resulted from the publication through FOIA of a progress report from the laboratory. It alluded to the possibility of gain of function . This created and expected firestorm of tweets that I had lied to the Congress and that gain of function actually took place and I covered it up. This has gained some momentum in the fringe press but nothing at all from the standard press.
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sep 12, 2021
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2021-09-13 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Sept. 13, 2021 - Global USA An article appeared today in The Lancet written by Phil Krause, Marion Gruber (FDA) and people from WHO. It was a bit of a revolt on the part of the FDA and WHO who wrote in the article that they do not believe there is enough scientific evidence to do boosters . This is clearly sour grapes on the part of the FDA who feel that they are being pressured to approve boosters. However, if they look at the data from the CDC as well as from Israel it will be very clear that boosters are needed and greatly enhanced the waning response from the original vaccine. Janet Woodcock is very upset that the FDA people did this without clearing the article through the usual channels. There seems to be a couple of camps forming now with one feeling they should not be boosters , mostly because the developing world does not have easy access to vaccines. I have been stressing that it is possible to do both , namely, you can provide boosts for your own citizens at the same time as providing doses of vaccine to low and middle income countries. In this regard the USA is making major contributions to getting doses to the developing world. This includes already distributing 130 million doses to 90 countries and providing 500 million doses between now and the first half of 2022. In addition we have given $4 billion to CoVAX. Furthermore, I am working with Jeff and the White House to plan a PEPFAR-like program to get doses to the developing world 400,000/662,600 PRESS: Taped "The Daily Show" with Trevor Noah - to air tomorrow; Newsy TV Interview;
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Sept. 14, 2021 Moderna presented to us (Medical Team + other interested parties) their data on the open label study involving the crossover from their phase three trial. Consistent with the data from Pfizer they see a waning of immunity particularly in association with the delta variant. This is another bit of data to argue for the booster program that we will soon roll out during the week of September the 20th. Had a very heated and intense Zoom discussion this evening with the medical team as well as people from CDC, FDA, and HHS - Key players among many were: Peter Marks, Janet Woodcock, Rochelle Walensky, Amanda Fine (CDC), Stephen Cha, David Kessler, Vivek Murthy, Leslie Dach, et al. The subject matter of the intense discussion was trying to align the FDA with the CDC in the interpretation of data from Israel regarding the safety and efficacy of a third shot booster dose. It is clear from the Israel data that there is waning immunity across all of the age groups not only for infection protection but also for protection against severe disease. The sticking point is that if the FDA pushes for approval of the third booster shot for all ages there is the question of a lack of a lot of data for safety among young individuals particularly in the context of myocarditis. The CDC , particularly in the person of Amanda Fine, was very concerned that the ACIP would balk at recommending for younger individuals the third dose because there was not enough safety data. As we all know Jeff is very much intense on getting this approval through. I would imagine that he would be OK with the approval now of doses down to around 30 or 40 years old with the stipulation that as soon as safety data comes in for younger people, we could approve that for all ages. We will continue the discussions over the next 24 to 36 hours. What was supposed to be 1/2 an hour meeting tonight turned out to be a 2 1/2 hour meeting. This subject is being intensely discussed throughout the community and into the media. The people who were involved in the Lancet article discussed above we're actually shooting from the hip without knowing anything about the Israeli data. It will become clear that they were completely off base as soon as the Israeli data becomes known to everyone. After the phone call I spoke to Jeff and explain what happened at the meeting. He seemed OK so long as we don't stall on the approval. PRESS: MSNBC - "Morning Joe"; ABC GMA Instagram with Tony Morrison; CNN "The Lead" with Jake Tapper; MSNBC - "All In" with Chris Hayes
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Sept. 15, 2021 - Global - 225,700,000/4,600,000; USA - 41,400,000/662,600 Confusion and controversy continues. There is a lot of discussion in the media about whether or not there's enough data to make a determination about giving boosters and at what age level to give them. The medical team feels pretty much in agreement that the FDA should approve . Waller; YouTube with : and Arthur Allen September 16, 2021 boosters down to about 30 to 40 year olds and go the rest of the way down to 18 years old after we get more safety data regarding myocarditis in the younger group. The media are having a ball in talking about imagined conflicts and disagreements between the FDA and the CDC. I keep insisting that I feel that a third shot boost should be part of the standard vaccine regimen and that a boost is not just the luxury but an integral part of the regiment. That is why I reject the concept that if protection against hospitalizations remains stable but infection rate is not protected by the vaccine that everything is OK. I believe that infection with mild to moderate disease is something that we should do whatever we can to prevent not only because it disrupts individuals and society but because of the problem of long COVID. The talking head docs on the outside all have their own opinion, many of whom have not seen the data that we have seen. The FDA's VRPAC will meet on Friday Sept. 17 and then all will be settled PRESS: Radio One Atlanta 107.9 FM - Beyonce Alowishus; Univision Radio "Santo Remedio" - Monse Medina; El Show de Erazno y Chokolata
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Sept. 16, 2021 - Today - 155,000 cases Had my every couple of weeks Zoom call with Chris Whitty (UK). Oatrick Vallance is usually on the calls, but was not on today. We discussed a number of items including the tension around booster shots that I have described above. The UK has decided that they will give boosters to everyone 50 years of age and older as well as to their health care providers and immunocompromised. They are going to wait and observe before they go any younger than 50 years of age also they will very unlikely be vaccinating children younger than 12 years old. This is in contrast to our plans to complete the clinical trials and vaccinate two as young as six months old . It is likely that we will have enough data to vaccinate children from 11 years old to five years old by the middle to end of October into early November. PRESS: Daily Telegraph - Nick Allen -print; Instagram with Jessica Waller; YouTube with Roland Martin "Unfiltered"; WTOP Radio with Mike Murillo KLN (Kaiser Health News):
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Sept. 17, 2021 Very important decisions made today at VRPAC meeting. They voted unanimously to approve booster shots for people 65 years of age and older as well as those with underlying medical conditions that put them at risk for severe disease as well as those with occupations that put them at risk for infection. This is going to be a very difficult communications challenge. We just got off a phone call with the medical team following the announcement of this decision by VRPAC. And it is clear that if you keep all these people in the loop even though it looks like it's very restrictive you're gonna have about 80% of the population that are eligible to be vaccinated will be getting that third boost. More later. Active severe cases (60+ actual numbers) Active severe cases (60+ per 100K) un-vax I vax without booster I with booster un-vax I vax without booster I with booster a 225 || 80 waerowrwr--s ° Pe in o1/o2z/21 01/03/21 __--01/o4/21__o1fos/2i1_--o1fo6/2i_--o1/o7/2i1_--or/os/2i_o1/o9/21 o1/o2z/21 01/03/21 __--or/oa/21_--or/os/2zi_--o1fosj2i_--o1fo7/2i_--orfos/21_01/o9/21 t+ableou é > k ep o PRESS: Univision TV "Despierta America"; MSNBC with Craig Melvin; White House Press conference;