Tony's Diary Package — page 931

Fauci: Well, I'll give you one of each. I'm professionally thankful that we successfully did something that was unprecedented in the history of vaccinology. And that is, we went from the sequence of a virus to a vaccine that was highly effective and safe. And we've been able to vaccinate a substantial proportion, although not as much as I would want, but a substantial proportion of the of the population. That's professional. Personally, it's the same thing. It's no secret that I have been clearly targeted by rather radical elements who just keep attacking me every day, all day -- Fox News, Breitbart -- all those other crazies. And what I'm thankful for is what I said last year, that I have an incredible partner who is really amazing in her understanding of me and just keeps me grounded in reality when you have hand grenades being thrown at you every day. To have somebody that reminds you that what you're doing is absolutely important for the health and the safety of the country, so don't pay any attention to all that nonsense. That's what I'm thankful for Major Serious Issue with new South African Variant!! - It is Thanksgiving Day and something has come up today that is very serious. I got an email from Jeff Zients who forwrsded an email from Stephane Bancel. Stephane was alerting Jeff to the fact that he had heard that there was a new variant in South Africa called B.1.1.529. See below: 25Nov2021 SGTF sequence report - N One of the problems is that the mutations that have accumulated which are now greater than 30 on the Spike protein including 10 mutations at the RBD would predict an escape from immune protection . In addition, the variant in RSA has rapidly gone from a couple of percent to double digits. Clearly, it is highly transmissible and has been demonstrated in people who have recovered from the Delta variant. This is very disconcerting since besides its transmissibility, this suggests that is eluding immune protection. I engaged in a bunch of phone calls with Larry Corey and John Mascola and multiple calls with Jeff Zients. I tried repeatedly to contact Rochelle Walenski, but she is not answering texts, emails or telephone calls. However, it turns out that there is a glitch in my connection to her text and my texts keep getting sent to an e-mail address. We will fix this. I finally go to her later in the evening. Larry Corey has arranged a zoom for 10:30 AM tomorrow with our South African colleagues including Glenda Gray, Penny Moore and Tulio de Oliveira who is the evolutionary biologist from South Africa. Of particular note, as I was scrambling around to contact people, the UK announced that they are banning flights not only from South Africa but also from Namibia , Lesotho , Botswana , Eswatini, and Zimbabwe. In addition, they are going to require PCR tests for all arrivals into the UK. Israel has also now announced it will ban its citizens from traveling to southern Africa covering the same countries as well as Mozambique. Again, with multiple phone calls with Jeff , we decided to wait until tomorrow morning when we will have contact with the South Africans to get a clear review of what is going on. When I finally connected with Rochelle later in the evening, it was clear that she really didn't have any idea what was going on. I am really surprised by this since the CDC