Tony's Diary Package — page 913

»xpect that they will come at me hard Nov. 2, 2021 - Global - 246,594,191/4,998,784; USA - 46,024,349/745,274 The decline in cases in the United states is unfortunately beginning to plateau. We have started to see the inklings of this as the steepness of the deflection has diminished and we are getting stuck for several days now at around 70,000 cases per day. We will have to watch this closely. In addition, cases in the European Union particularly in Eastern Europe are starting to surge. This is all bad news as we enter into the cold season of the fall and winter. Francis Collins and I had a conference call with chairperson Patty Murray of the HELP committee. She was very sympathetic about the fact that the Republicans would have come at me pretty hard and she wanted me to explain to her about gain of function research so that she could get a better understanding of things and she promised that she would give me the opportunity to respond if people like Rand Paul do not give me the possibility of the chance of responding ACIP meets today to discuss Pfizer vaccine for 5 to 11 yo. Voted unanimously to recommend vaccines for 5 to 11 year olds Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey was involved in a very close race for re election. The next day (tomorrow) I texted him and congratulated him on his close win. He texted me back thanking me for my friendship and sending his best regards to Christine. He is really a good guy. Nov. 3, 2021 - Final pre for the HELP Hearing. I fully expect that they will come at me hard PRESS: CNN "New Day" with Briana Keilar; Usual WH Press briefing; CNN with Chris Cuomo; MSNBC with Chris Hayes Nov. 4, 2021 - Global - 247,472,724/5,012,337; USA - 46,180,190/747,970 Very important Day!! Senate HELP Hearing - I together with Dawn O'Connell, Janet Woodcock, Rochelle Walensky testified before the Senate HELP hearing chaired by Patty Murray . We had expected to have the same conflict with Senator Rand Paul who continues to lie egregiously about the gain of function research which he claims was done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology funded by NIAID. During the last Hearing I had a direct conflict with him in which he accused me of being responsible for the death of four million people by funding research at Wuhan. At that time, I angrily said that he was the liar. He continued along this line totally misrepresenting facts and accusing me of lying before the Congress. However, in contrast to what I did last time I did not aggressively call him a liar, which he is. What I did was very calmly counter all of his arguments that this was a proven leak from the Wuhan lab, that we were continuing to fund the Wuhan lab, and that I was