Tony's Diary Package — page 588

/-22,500,000/375,100 Spoke with Pat Foye of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). They want me to do a 1 minute PSA to encourage their employees to get vaccinated. PRESS: Rural TV Network - "Rural Health Matters", Nashville, TN TV; POLITICO: 'There is a palpable concern': Biden presses advisers over 100 million Covid shot goal (This relates to my conversation with Zients/Ducklo) CDC: No sign of homegrown U.S. coronavirus variant, but scientists need to look harder By Joel Achenbach, Kim Bellware and Hamza Shaban January 12, 2021 - Global - 89,400,000/1,900,000; USA - 22,500,000/375,100 4400 deaths today John Mascola working with David Ho to determine the possibility that the UK (N501Y; B.1.1.7) and/or the RSA mutants evade the antibodies induced by vaccines. According to Ho, the RSA mutants are much more troublesome in that they do not eliminate the protection of vaccine induced antibodies, but they definitely decrease by 2 to 3-fold their potency. David is now working on studying the UK mutant. Stay tuned. The next 4 weeks will be determined by whether the large Southern, upper Mid-West, Mid-Atlantic and North-East metros will be able to contain the rapid accelerating viral spread or have the prolonged log phase followed by the high plateau of LA (now entering month 3). Deb 1. Reporting has stabilized and we have returned to the rapid pre-thanksgiving rate of cases as the current resurgence moves into the populous states from CA to TX to FL : cases are up 7% from last week's same time period. 2. Nearly all METROs over 500K residents is deteriorating. - even those that had been stable now have rising cases slides 7-45: NYC area is now reached cases greater than the Spring surge Throughout "the 2019 flu season from Sept. 29 to Dec. 28, the CDC reported more than 65,000 cases of influenza nationwide," while "during the same period last year, the agency reported 1,016 cases."