Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Global – 3,53,000/245,000; USA – 1,200,000/71,000 Begin day with uncertainty about the fate of the TF as well as the fact that there is great discord in the country regarding opening abruptly versus continued careful mitigation. It is clear thsat Trump and advisors are concentrating only on opening and saving the economy for the election in November. To be fair, we should consider that there are unintended consequences in my area of health. Had conversation with Bob Redfield lastr night about the fact that >1 million children world-wide have missed their measles vaccinations because of the shutdown. This is terrible and needs to be addressed since on that basis alone, there would be far, far more excess deaths from measles among children than coronavirus deaths among children. I need to bring this up at TF meeting. Trump does complete turnaround and now says that he will continue the TF indefinitely since he has gotten so many call from “good people” who tell him that the TF has do a “great job” and he should not dissolve it. Katie Miller and I laugh at each other in the Sit Room (see above). At TF meeting VP apologizes to me about the misinformation regarding the dissolution of the Tf and how that oput me in an awkward position with the media (see above). He admikts that he was “blindsided” since someone (likely Jared) leaked the story without telling Pence (Yikes!). I also took the opportunity together with Deb Birx who was there for the conversation that it is clear that Deb and I are being blocked from appearing the press (specifically national TV). I explained to Pence that I was formerly doing 2 TV hits per day and now I am doing 1 and at the most 2 per week with nothing on Sundays. He was surprised and said he would speak with Kayleigh about it. Also, they want to beef up the TF with both economists and some additional medical people. Marc Short and Pence sked me to ask Francis Collins to join. I spoke with Francis tonight and , as expected, Francis would do it even though it would be an added burden of work piled on an already packed schedule. A bit unusual that they would have 2 NIH people on TF. Got rather unusual phone call from Larry Horowitz arranged by Anna Eschoo (D- CA). He was asking questions about Rick Bright, likely related to tomorrow’s Hearing on the Whistleblower issue and his getting fired from BARDA. I was careful in response. Larry said he had many e-mails (from January, 2020) where Rick was calling attention to fact that we needed supplies for the SNS (masks, PPE, ets) and Kadlec was not listening. The e-mail make Kadlec look bad. Larry wanted to know if I knew about these e-mails. I had never seen them. They were all e-mails within ASPR/HHS/BARDA. Trouble looming with the distribution of the Remdesivir that was donated by Gilead. Kadlec with Adm. P given task of distributing the drug equitably and eithically (Chris was consulted) to the hospitals that needed it. VP at the end of the TF meeting asked Azar, Kadlec, Adm. P, Deb and then unexpectedly me to get on the phone tonight and by tomorrow have a solution to what was perceived as a misalignment of distribution. It was clear from discussion last night that someone (likely Kadlec and ASPR) screwed up since in NYC, it was clear (and I picked it up right away) that the hospitals such as Cornell and Columbia did not get drug while Queens Hospital and Lincoln Hospital got drug. There is a furor about his screwup and Deb is not hesitating to call it out.