July 28, 2022
Tony's Diary Package, pp.995-996 · fauci_diary:entry:00838
Page text: p.995, p.996 · original PDF
- Date
- 2022-07-28 00:00 (day precision)
- Type
- diary entry · diary
- author
- Anthony S. Fauci
July 28, 2022
Cases and hospitalizations continue to rise slowly with very little increase in deaths.
I recommend to Becerra to declare PHE.
Monkeypox:
Global.health: 20,671 confirmed MPX cases, 42 suspected in 84 non-endemic countries.
4600 in USA. 2 children infected in USA from mother who had sex with bisexual man
The Montreal Gazette concerning my comments (virtually at the UNAIDS report
unveiling):
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United
States and chief medical adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, said the UNAIDS report is "a reminder that
the global plague" of HIV/AIDS "continues to rage," even though much of our attention diverted to the
global pandemic of COVID and now, monkeypox.
"All of us in the global HIV community must work to reach vulnerable communities," he said, and the
report is a reminder that "we can do better in this, the fifth decade of AIDS. The priority must be to
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implement better treatment modalities, while improving and optimizing the next generation of
interventions."
The COVID pandemic and, now, monkeypox, mean "people are exhausted with epidemics and
pandemics. We have to fight twice as hard to get HIV back on the radar screen, where it belongs," Fauci
said.
I was involved in a very difficult zoom cool this evening with Peter Marks. Rob Califf,
Vivek, David Kessler, Julia Tierney (FDA), Hillary Marston, among others about the
potential conflict that might occur tomorrow when Ashish has convinced the president to
come out and say that anyone who's not been boosted recently should get boosted.
However, we now know that both moderna and Pfizer will have the BA.5 bivalent boost
available the first week of September. This will create a major messaging problem since we are
telling people to get boosted with the vaccine that doesn't cover the current BA.5 variant when
the actual variant-specific boost will be available 5 weeks from now. Somehow or other Ashish
took the initiative to convince the president to say this without consulting with the FDA or the
CDC. If these mixed messages go out it will be a major cluster. I tried to bring this up to them
and suggested strongly that they have a zoom in the morning before any of these announcements
are made in order to get a common message otherwise it will look like one of the worst mixed
messages to come out in a long time. I'm starting to see right now the advantage of having Jeff as
the coordinator since he understands the interactions among the different agencies of government
whereas Ashish is smart, a very good communicator and is well meaning, but he is more about
looking like he's taking the lead on things than coordinating.
Later in the evening, I had dinner over jeff's and Mary's house which was a great evening.
Guests at the dinner besides Chris and I were: Susan Rice, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin
and his wife Charlene, Deb Harmon, Wally Adeyemo. The discussion was very stimulating
particularly Susan Rice telling us stories of her escapades during the Obama administration and
secretary Austin telling us about the tension in his multiple responsibilities. One of those
discussions of the night was the desire of Nancy Pelosi to go to Taiwan which everybody feels is
a very bad idea given the geopolitical situation. However for some reason she feels she needs to
go there and everyone seems to be against it.