Tony's Diary Package — page 229

550,000/127,000 Next couple of weeks will be critical as hospitalizations increase. VP is finally wearing a mask. Believe that Deb likely convinced him PRESS: Interview with Apoorva Mandavilli of New York Times on "pooled testing"; Wolf Blitzer showed an interview of me by Elizabeth Cohen as part of the Aspen Ideas Festival in a Special Sunday Night Edition of the Situation Room. June 29, 2020 - Global - 10,000,000/500,000; USA - 2,550,000/127,000 47,000 new cases yesterday. 50% of all new cases from CA, AZ, TX, FL. Clearly big problems with resurgences very likely related to young people at bars and in big parties related to opening, Memorial Day and crowds. Mostly young people with average 1.5 decades younger than a couple of months ago. Governors' call in Sit Room with VP leading the call. Clearly, they get it now and are worried. I spoke about making the public health response to vehicle to re-opening as opposed to the obstacle to re-opening, i.e. obey guidelines and always use mask and physical distancing even when opening. Gov Ray Cooper (D-NC) called me and spoke for 45 minutes on his dilemma about whether to open the Charter Schools that are scheduled to open in 2 weeks, right after 4th July. He was agonizing since he wanted to do the right thing. Since this is the first decision among Governors regarding opening for the Fall term, he feels that he will be the example. He is seeing an uptick of cases and he is near FL and so is worried that if he opens, he may have to lose again if he gets surge like FL and TX, I recommended that he delay decision for 2 weeks. His health officer is Mandy Cohen. Had important conversation with Pence right before the afternoon task Force meeting. I came early and walked up to VP suite and luckily he was sitting in his office with Marc Short and ? Natalie. I told him that I am being blocked from TV and I needed to get on TV to give the 'risk reduction" message and that I would avoid being pitted against him or the POTUS merely by not playing that game. I mentioned the recent interview on NPR with Michel Martin where she asked a Fauci versus Pence/Trump question and I responded that this was not helpful and I was there as a health official and not to get into politics. Michel gracefully backed down. I also told him about the dangers of having me and others on stage with him when he talks happy i.e. glass half full as opposed to glass half empty. He got it, but still wanted to do press conferences with us. He did promise that he would get me out there on TV since he really liked my message. First time anyone ever spoke that way to VP. He truly likes me a lot (and vice versa). Now we have to get the POTUS press people to agree. Interesting intrigue in the White House. POTUS people versus VP people. Katie and Marc are all with me.