A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Oct. 10, 2021 - Global USA Had a rather slow relaxed day (Columbus Day holiday). Also Chris went to New Orleans to help Megan and Melissa move into their new home. I spend time reading in depth certain articles including the frightening article in the New York Times by Robert Kagan on the danger to our democracy. In addition I read a bunch of scientific stuff that felt good since I usually AM 1/2 an inch deep and five miles wide. I'm trying to put out of my mind the continual attacks by the far right dark web, Fox News, and the lying senators and congressmen who keep harping on the gain of function nonsense. I'm trying hard to not let it distract me, but it clearly is an organized assault on me PRESS: CNN "State of the Union" with Dana Bash
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Oct. 11, 2021 Over the past few months and more intensively over the past several weeks there has been considerable discussion between Peter Staley, James Krellenstein, and David Barr and Jeff [E] .zients@who.eop.gov 1 of Poor Zients, David Kessler and me concerning the activists' desire to get the federal government to pre-emptively increase the capacity of companies, particularly moderna, to make more vaccines for low and lower middle income countries. the activists want us to invoke the defense production act (DPA) to force moderna to allow Lonza to increase their capacity for vaccine production for LMICS. below is just one of a series of emails reflecting the frustration on the part of Peter and colleagues with our inability to do that right now . What they do not completely understand is the complexity of the issues involved , although their ultimate goal as is mine is laudatory namely equity for vaccines for the rest of the world . See below emails :
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Oct. 12, 2021 - Global - 237,400,000/4,800,000; USA - 44,400,000/714,000 Senator Rand Paul continues his assault on me. His latest rant is that I owe and apology to the 100 million people in this country who he believes had been infected. He claims that I am in favor of mandating that they get vaccinated even though they are now protected and so given the fact that recent data indicate that there is reasonably good protection following infection, now all these people deserve an apology. I never said that they are not protected. I only said that they can be more protected if they get vaccinated. Another example of his gross distortion of the truth. Had a Nice fireside chat but the Council on Government Relations talking about COVID-19 in general. The people with whom I spoke were David Norton and Wendy Streitz PRESS: WJLA Locel TV "Corona Special" with Lindsey Mastis;
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Oct. 13, 2021 - Global USA Did a very enjoyable fireside chat with Rebecca Katz of Georgetown under the auspices of the Smithsonian. Broad observation. The medical team and I have been struggling with this issue that is out there percolating. It relates to the fact that people who might not want to obey the mandate to get vaccinated are saying that if they had previously been infected that this should count the same as already being vaccinated and so they should not be mandated to get vaccinated and they should not lose their jobs if they are in a situation where it is required that should be vaccinated to work in a certain organization. Although there are much more data about vaccinated people people who have post infection immunity comma it is in fact a legitimate question that they Are asking. The idiots like Rand Paul as indicated above do nothing but aim their criticism at me as if I am the person that's doing the mandates. However, despite that we still have to addressed this issue. The medical team last night had a zoom meeting at 9:00 PM with some of the outside physician community including Paul Offit, Peter Notez, Akiko Iwasaki, Mike Osterholm. We all agreed that although those who were infected with post infection immunity have a point , we still must get people vaccinated since vaccination following infection give the highest degree of protection and we do not have a good handle on the durability and the breath of protection following natural infection whereas we have much more information about those parameters following vaccination.
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2021-10-14 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Oct. 14, 2021 - Global USA I briefed the POTUS in the Oval Office today. As usual he was a little bit late. We were supposed to have a briefing at 11:30 and it was not until after 12 that we started the briefing. The briefing was with the usual group including me, Jeff, Natalie, Vivek, Rochelle, and marcella. The President was alone and not with the vice president . We briefed him on the status of the outbreak , on the booster situation, and I briefed him on the recent data of the successful trial of Molnupiravir as an antiviral agent . Recent data showed a 50% decrease in the likelihood of hospitalization and death compared to placebo. However, during the discussion the president began to philosophize a little bit about the stress that is on the country . He refers specifically to a conversation that he had with Xi Jinping, President of China. Xi told him in a 45 minute conversation that he felt that democracies throughout the world are failing and given the need to have rapid decisions about important items, a form of dictatorship works much more efficiently the democracy. He referred to the dysfunction in the United states Congress as a perfect example of this. President Biden and his discussion with us emphasized the importance of preserving democratic principles but did bemoan the fact that we do really have a dysfunctional situation in this country and trying to get things done in an expeditious manner. Biden showed during the discussion his empathy, his kindness, that is deep feeling about the importance of democracy. It was a very interesting discussion.
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Oct. 15, 2021 Had a very nice zoom conversation with Raj Panjebi. He is the new director of the president's malaria initiative (PMI). He set up a zoom call with me, Lee Hall, and several of his staff. He wanted to strengthen the relationship between NIAID and PMI based on the historically great interactions that we've had over the years. He went out of his way to recognize that I played an important role in the creation of the PMI. I promised Raj that I would work closely with him and the PMI to maximize the interaction and collaboration among us. My staff wants me to lay low a little bit as we approach the Senate HELP hearing on November 4 since there certainly will be a lot of fireworks with Rand Paul and others. I am going to be on a few of the Sunday shows again this weekend and then after that I think I will be very selective in the TV shows that I go on . The reason for this is that no matter what I say the far right will absolutely distort it and make it into something political. It is striking that literally every single day I am criticized and attacked on social media, Fox News, and the tweeting of the far right including by people like senator Paul. The latest that trump is doing is putting signs up that fouchy stole Christmas. This is based on a question that Margaret Brennan asked me on Face the Nation a couple of weeks ago about whether I could predict what the outbreak would be as we get into the winter I merely said that we really can't predict it will depend on how many people get vaccinated. That got translated by the far right in that I was stealing Christmas from them. Truly unbelievable nonsense PRESS: Interview with NBC Health (print); Oct.17, 2021 is of COVID-19. Important couple of days over the last few days. the booster data from moderna and J & J were presented to the FDA . In addition, the mix and match data from NIAID were evaluated. It is going to be an interesting dilemma since the Moderna and Pfizer boosted J & J better than J&J boosted itself. It should be interesting to see how the recommendations come out. The same old crap is going on with the far right continuing to attack me . The latest is a book written by an Australian person who says I'm the father of gain of function research with quotes from the infamous Richard Ebright saying that I'm a liar and I have misled everybody about gain of function. What a bunch of nonsense! The far right continues to try and discredit me. On a very nice interview that I had with Chris Wallace (see below), Chris asked me what I thought was going on concerning my being a very polarizing figure . I answered that it is not surprising that I'm a polarizing figure since I speak the truth and people who are lying , who are propagating conspiracy theories , and who don't admit the facts even when they're staring them right in the face uh certainly people who will be polarized against me since I stand for something that makes them very uncomfortable and that something is the truth. Chris and I went to a wonderful brunch over Adrienne Arsh's home. The brunch was in honor of Christine LaGarde. the typical Washington a list was there. It was a fun brunch since Adrienne is such a wonderful and generous person. I tend to shy away from these functions since everyone gathers around me wanting to take photos and telling me what a wonderful job I'm doing. Even though this is something that is not unpleasant, I still am uncomfortable when people call attention to me when I'm in a crowd. However they are all well meaning and I should feel gratified that they do pay attention to me. PRESS: Fox "News Sunday" with Chris Wallace; ABC "This Week" with Martha Raddetz; MSNBC with Alex Witt;
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Oct. 18, 2021 Sad news today!! Colin Powell passed away due to complications of COVID-19. He was vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. He died at Walter Reed Hospital. I got to know him through social events. He was always very kind, generous and gave me advice about writing my memoir. Very likeable person. I received a call this morning from Dr. Jason Blaylock of Walter Reed hospital. I got to know Jason from when he came over to the office and gave me an Army medallion for giving a lecture to Walter Reed. In addition, he was involved in the care of President Trump when he got COVID. He wanted to speak to me to run by me exactly what he did in the treatment of to determine if I would have done anything different and if he had made any mistakes in the treatment. It was a very humble reaching out to me by a very sincere physician who cared deeply about whether he gave optimal care to I went over with him each and every step in detail from the time entered the hospital to the time he died this morning. At every single point in his care I had no problems or issues with the way he was treated or handled. I would not have done anything differently and I believe that received as good care as he could have gotten anywhere in the country or the world. It was merely an example of an 83 year old man with an underlying malignancy , in this case multiple myeloma, together with Parkinson's disease, chemotherapy for his multiple myeloma , as well as underlying cardiovascular disease and hypertension. He was given superb care and yet he still succumbed. He had been vaccinated with the Pfizer product back in February but because of scheduling and other problems, he never received a 3rd booster dose which he should have gotten given his immune compromised state. Bottom line is that I do not think anything could have been done differently. Doctor Blaylock indicated to me that they are already receiving a lot of negative social media by anti-vaxxers who are now saying that was vaccinated but he still died; therefore, people should not get vaccinated. Typical anti-vaccine nonsense. Had a very productive conversation with my UK colleague Chris Whitty. There has been some recent reports a mini-surge in cases in the UK. The UK is considerably under vaccinating children compared to the United States. In addition, they do not require that children wear masks in school. Chris mentioned that the surge is among children and that for the first time we are seeing transmission from the children who are infected in school to their parents and relatives within the household. This is very different from prior assumptions that children do not transmit infection to adults. Chris thinks that this was true with the alpha variant which was not particularly transmissible. However, he feels that with the delta variant and its high degree of transmissibility that this is what we are now seeing. He gave us a heads up because the UK is usually about a month ahead of us in the dynamics of the outbreak. We may not be seeing this type of a surge since we are pushing very hard to vaccinate children. In fact, next week the FDA will look at the data from Pfizer on vaccinating children from 5 to 11 years old. One other point with the UK is that they are not enthusiastic about mandating vaccination even though they are doing well with having vaccinated about 85% of their population with at least one dose.
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Oct. 19, 2021 - Global - 241.000,000/4,900,000; USA - 45,000,000/726,000 Interesting zoom with White House protocol staff today arranged by Jeff. The purpose of the meeting was to get my input about how to restrict or not events and visitors to the White House moving forward . This is particularly relevant as we approach the holiday season and the protocol people have to make decisions regarding holiday receptions, state dinners and tours of the White House. It was an interesting discussion in which they relied on my judgment as to how restrictive they should be regarding the size of the crowd, the requirement of testing, and the requirement of vaccination. I have received a lot of honors over the last year and a half from a number of prestigious organizations . Unfortunately there are so many of these that it is very difficult to fully appreciate them as they all seemed to pile up in a very intense time frame. However, last night I received one that was particularly nice . It was the History Maker Medal from the New York Historical Society which was associated with the fireside chat between me and my good friend David Rubenstein. As a special treat they had the Regis High School jazz ensemble play music in the background in my honor
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October 19, 2021 Screen cap / CNN CNN's Drew Griffin on Tuesday conducted an interview with anti-vaccine Dr. Rashid Buttar in which the doctor claimed that COVID-19 vaccines would result in a "genocide" worse than anything Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler did during World War II. During the interview, Griffin confronted Buttar for his past comparisons between Hitler and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert in infectious diseases. "You think Dr. Fauci is involved in some kind of plot to kill millions of people?" Griffin asked. "I just want to make sure I understand this." "Again, Drew, I'm a reasonable person," Buttar replied. "I said it could be this, but I can tell you that Dr. Fauci is not an innocent bystander. He is very well aware of what he is doing." Later in the interview, Buttar claimed that the majority of deaths from the delta variant of the novel coronavirus were caused by "vaccine injury," despite the fact that the vast majority of deaths came from the unvaccinated. "I don't want to be part of this mass genocide that I see happening," Buttar told him. "And I think that what's going on right now will be remembered as a worst time in history compared to... World War II." "I just want to be straight with you," said Griffin. "I think you're crazy."