Tony's Diary Package — page 34

PRESS: NBC Today Show; MSNBC; Mar. 1, 2020 - 87,137/2977. Bob Redfield and Nancy Messonnier telling me that there are now more cases in Chicago, Rhode Island, Florida, Massachusetts. Nancy is frustrated that Bob is not sounding the alarm to start social distancing. She is asking for my help. I will bring it up at the AMA call and the Task Force call. Got call at home this AM (Sunday) from Gov. Andrew Cuomo (NY) asking advice how he should handle the COVID-19 siutation in NYC. Had long conversation in which he stressed a few times, how much his father (and mother) loved me and used to tell Chris and Andrew how much they respected me and how proud they were that I was an ItalianAmerican. Sylvia Burwell appeared on Fareed Zakaria GPS show. I was supposed to be on with her, but it was one of the shows that got cancelled for me. She called me this AM while Chris and I were on our walk and asked advice and fact checking for her interview. On several of the Sunday Shows my name kept coming up by people in interviews and panels (Chuck Todd - Meet the Press) saying that "we should have Dr. Tony Fauci out there speaking to the American people. He has a decades long history of giving the truth in a calming way to the public." Sunday conference call with AMA followed by VP Pence and Task Force. We are moving to mitigation in Santa Clara section of California where there are cases and in the Seattle area of Washington State. Reason - we have sustained community transmission in those areas. PRESS: FOX and Friends; Mar. 2, 2020 - 89,197/3038. 2nd death in the USA (Washington State man). Several more community based cases plus a NYC case that returned from Iran. We will need to move to mitigation + containment in Washington State, which has declared state of emergency. 89 cases in USA with more cases each day. 6 deaths in USA Deb Birx on board. Had a slight run in with her when she told me that the WH was pissed at me for sayng on n NBC interview today that we have an outbreak and "likely a pandemic". It all go cleared up after I spoke with Katie Miller who is now running the Comms shop for COVID-19. She is the VP's Comms person. Someone trying the hurt Azar by leaking to press (Politico and WSJ)that on a phone call wher we discussed the contamination problem with the CDC test that Azar and Brian Harrison said to send the tests out anyway even though they are defective. The leaker said that I was on the call and tried to persuade them not to do this. The entire story was a fabrication and Brian Harrison, Redfield and Steve Hahn talked the reporter out of it.