Tony's Diary Package — page 18

HO. Got good Briefed the Asia/East Asia Ambassadors on nCoV in Room EEOB-350. Then had long meeting of Coronavirus Task Force is Sit Room of WH chaired by Mick Mulvany at 4:00- 4:45PM when the core group of Task Force were called to Oval Office to brief POTUS. When we walked in the POTUS was not yet in the room. When he walked in with Melania, the first thing he did was say""Anthony, come here and say hello to Melania". Then, to my embarrassment in front of everyone (Kellyanne, Mick, Bob O'Brien and many in Cabinet) he told Melania that I was the smartest person in the world. We then sat down and briefed him and Melania. He asked what he could do and we said that since he would be calling Chinese President Xi Jinping late this evening, he could ask him to approve the WHO delegation of scientists that include CDC and NIH people. He did what he did last time and directed most of the questions to me, again ending with asking me if I thought that we were on the right track. During the task Force meeting, the issues came up of cruise ships (one in Yokohama, Japan, and one in New Jersey/New York) that had infected Chinese from Wuhan on them and discussion of how to handle quarantine for the rest of the passengers. PRESS: India TV; Podcast with Newt Gingrich; Podcast with Howard Buchner at JAMA (well-received by NYT and WSJ reporters. Feb. 7, 2020 - Started with 7:00 AM with a multi-party call hosted by WHO. Got good information. See below. 31,211/637. 61 infections on Japanese cruise ship. Chinese are starting to see a slight downtrend in cases. Perhaps we are turning things around in China? I warn on the call that we need to give developing countries the resources to do contact tracing and isolation or else as we decrease China, another country will become like China. Also, need serologies to determine extent of asymptomatic and minimally symptomatic infection so that we can determine the true case fatality rate among other things. Cancelled trip to Florida for Chris's birthday. So sorry. PRESS: Press conference at HHS with Azar, Redfield, Cuccinnelli, Biegun, Szabat; CNN; interviewed with: USA Today, Bloomberg Law (Jeannie Beaumann), Arizona republic, NY Times (Denise Grady), Bloomberg News (Bob Langreth; WJLA TV ABC7 (Local); CNN with Lou Dobbs. Feb. 8, 2020 - Numbers today: 34,867/724. First USCit died in Wuhan. Much press about this and the cruise ships in Japan and Bayonne. Infections and quarantine of the Japan ship (61 so far, including some USCits. 10 people under quarantine from airport screening at the 11 airports. People on Japanese ship getting cabin fever with