Tony's Diary Package — page 810

how we were going to breathe the president tomorrow (Friday). We divided the responsibility between Rochelle and me. Also, we had another one of the unusual experiences with the United states Congress. A group of 20 Right Wing Republican Congressman wrote a letter to Francis Collins and me asking a number of ridiculous questions in an accusatory manner as they have been for the last several weeks. In fact, the letter was first sent to the right wing publication the Daily Caller who then called us up and asked us what our response to the letter was when we had not yet even received the letter. And so, it was quite obvious that they were doing it mostly as a publicity stunt. In any event, one of the most amazing parts of the letter was the part where they made the statement: "Doctor Fauci was working closely with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)". They gave a reference for that statement that was an email sent to me from George Gao on March 28th 2020. In fact, that email was George apologizing to me for seemingly contradicting me in an article in Science in which he said that the United States was making a mistake by not recommending that people universally wear a mask. He did not want that to be interpreted that he was criticizing me and he apologized. In addition, George was saying how concerned he was about the outbreak and that he was worried about me and hoped that I was doing well. I wrote back to him and said "Thank you for your kind note I hope that all is well with you." If anyone can construe that exchange as my working closely with the Chinese Communist Party, they have to be out of their mind. For that reason, it is clear that these types of letters are nothing but a bunch of unmitigated bullshit. PRESS: Local print media - Las Vegas Review Journal, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Gannett Missouri; July 16, 2021 I briefed the President in the Oval Office today about the Delta variant and its impact on our country. Present at the briefing were: Ron Klain, Susan Rice, Natalie Quillian, Jeff Zients, Anita Dunn, Brian Reese, Mike Donilon and Rochelle Walensky virtually. Given the increasing number of cases in the United States, even though the hospitalizations have not increased, the President was concerned that his message that by July 4th we would be seeing an independence from the virus here in the United states might actually be now subject to question. We spoke to him about the importance of emphasizing that vaccinated people do not get severe disease even from the Delta variant . In addition, we pointed out the possibility that we may need to give booster shots , namely a third dose following the two doses of the mRNA vaccine. The President was concerned that people would say that he was giving a mixed message when he asked everyone to get the standard regimen of vaccination and now we are telling them that they may need to get an additional dose. I pointed out to him that most people who are vaccinated would be quite amenable to getting a third dose so long as they thought it would increase the duration of their protection and or make them more highly protected. It is the people who do not want to get vaccinated to begin with who are going to be in trouble because they will get infected and they will need hospitalization. The POTUS and Jeff kept asking whether I thought that it would