FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Tuesday, April 21, 2009
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2009-04-21

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
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DIARY ENTRY — Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Source: Diary Prequel, p. 208 of 2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf
Words: 290
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Had lunch at the Oval Room across from Lafayette Park with Michael
Gerson (Washington Post, Council of Foreign relations) to catch up on some of the
projects that I am involved in re; Global Health issues. Mike was very influential in
helping me during the Bush 43 years with PEPFAR and the President’s Malaria Initiative.
I told him about my pushing for PrEP, Test and Treat, and Eradication of HIV (my new
“Big Three” for control of HIV). Nice time at lunch. He is a very, very sharp guy and
we have become good friends over the years – recall he invited me to private dinner with
George and Laura Bush at his home last year. I had turkey Club; Mike had asparagus
soup. Whether was sunny with threatening rain.

April 23-24, 2009 – First days of public awareness of the “swine flu” pandemic with the
“quadruple reassortant H1N1 influenza A. Around the clock conference calls and
meetings. In “battle mode” at HHS. I am handling everything for NIH, but there is
something strange regarding relationship with HHS (see below re: Jenny Backus.)

April 25-27, 2009 – Intense weekend with the potential pandemic evolving. Started in
Mexico and now person-to-person spread evolving in USA. At first only in TX and CA
and now beginning to spread throughout USA in small numbers that are growing.
Unclear why disease seems to be more severe in Mexico than in USA. Likely due to
larger undetected denominator in Mexico for some time and we are only seeing the
severe cases, whereas in USA with better surveillance, we see more mild cases. Also
spreading to Europe with several countries reporting cases, almost all related to trips to
Mexico or contact with people with Mexico exposure.