Tony's Diary Package — page 887

Sept. 28, 2021 Yesterday was an important day during one of the zoom calls with the "TV doctors ", i.e. people who are practicing physicians and public health people who regularly appear on TV shows. I made it very clear that I was very much in favor of providing booster shots for virtually everyone who is eligible for a vaccination. I said to the group of perhaps 50 people , mostly doctors, that the idea that only thing that you have to worry about with vaccines is keeping people out of the hospital is a false narrative since there are many people who do not require hospitalization who suffer greatly from getting infected with the virus. I know that this is contrary to the current recommendations of the CDC and the current authorization by the FDA . However, I believe that the judgment of who should get it was overly determined by an understandable consideration of the lack of doses for people in the developing world. In addition, there is a concern about safety regarding myocarditis for younger people, mostly men; however, once this is taken care of in my mind there is no reason not to vaccinate essentially everyone. This becomes even more important since there is great confusion right now with the so called gradation and prioritization of who should get vaccinated regarding when and how. We are getting a lot of blowback about this confusion which I totally predicted when I said we should make things very simple. Anyway, I made my thoughts very clear to the group on this call. Another important thing that is rolling out is that Rochelle is getting a lot of widespread credit , which she deserves, about making a broader recommendation than the ACIP indicated. As indicated above , she made this decision based on very intensive persuasion that I made to her late at night before she actually made the announcement. Just a statement about things that have been evolving overtime. There is a lot of discussion right now and scrambling about getting doses of monoclonal antibodies for people who get infected. This is a major change from previously when monoclonal antibodies were underused. In addition, I have not mentioned it but on a very regular basis, literally weekly, we brief the governors is on a governors's call; we brief the principles (cabinet members and others); we have a zoom call with the physicians and public health people who are out there on the TV circuit (see above) in order to keep them up-to-date as to what we are thinking ; and we briefed the President himself. I do not take notes after each of these ; however it is important to mention that they occur on a very regular basis. Noteworthy is the fact that I had an extraordinary podcast interview for one hour with famous actor Alec Baldwin. He is an amazingly intelligent , funny, an extremely likable person who was very much in tune with my history and my life and asked very penetrating and important questions. Without a doubt, from a intellectual and substantive standpoint it was one of the best if not the best interview that I have ever given. It was a good day for interviews in that my interview with Ed Yong for the Atlantic festival was also extremely good. This is not surprising as Ed is one of the most impressive writers and interviewers that I have ever met