Thursday, December 3, 2020

Global – 64,000,000/1,500,000; USA – 13,800,000/273,000 Records being broken: 3000 deaths yesterday; >100,000 hospitalizations; >200,000 new infections. With gauntlet of Today I met with President elect Biden’s landing team. It was a good meeting that was led by Jeff Zientz, Vivek Murthy, and included David Kessler, John Auerbach, Tom Inglesby, among others. We went on to discuss the challenges associated with the rollout of the vaccination campaign. In addition, I gave them my advice on what the most effective communication strategy would be for the upcoming administration. In addition, they wanted might take on what the challenges with be in the coming months of January, February, march, and beyond. It was an excellent conversation in which they all expressed their gratitude and respect for me for the work that I have been doing over the past several months. At exactly 3:00 PM, 1 hour as to the beginning of the meeting there was a prearranged call with President elect Joe Biden together with chief of staff Ron Klain. President-Elect Biden was very glad to chat with me and immediately stated that he wanted me to continue in my position as director, NIAID. In addition, he wanted me to be his chief medical adviser. Then, Ron and President elect Biden asked me a series of questions concerning some of the decisions that they would likely have to make in the coming months. Mayor Bill De Blasio called me up asking for advice about the surges that are occurring in NYC and how much of a lock down he should implement. He wanted to keep things mostly open until after the holidays and then shut down. I told him that this was a big mistake since by that time, the damage will have been done and he will have precipitated a major surge. I urged him to close the bars and restaurants and subsidize the establishments so that they do not go under. If he does that and discourages private, large gatherings, he could get away with keeping the shopping areas open. I apologize to the UK on BBC radio for implying that their process of the approval of the vaccine was rushed and sloppy PRESS: CBS News “The Takeout” with Major Garrett; Sky News UK TV; MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell; New York Times interview with Tara Pope Parker; KQED NPR Radio, San Francisco; BBC World News; New Zealand Herald (Dick Brass) print media; Bloomberg: