Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Global – 84,200,000/1,800,000 USA – 20,700,000/352,000 Deb’s notes: Made this shorter to make serious points. First and foremost our Fall surge slope is nearly identical to the UK slope suggesting we have had our own more transmissible strain since then and it was responsible for the Fall surge in the Northern Plain states. My concern then was this type of surge moving into the more populous states as it has now in CA and now Tx and the sunbelt is unstable as well as the midAtlantic and NorthEast. Viruses are always in search of escape mutants than are more transmissible yet preserving replication capacity. This is happening around the globe and the immunologic pressure on viruses drive this potential and we continue to increase the immunologic pressure through percent of population infected, use of plasma and monoclonal Ab and now immunization. Key to RNA viruses with this of high mutation potential is to rapidly immunize the population especially those most likely to have high replication potential – those over 65. We have to accelerate the immunization of those over 65 ASAP. We can’t hold back on the rest of Tier 1 awaiting 1a. We have been in 1a for a month without adequate progress. Deb Trump going completely crazy. Was recorded on an hour-long telephone call with Secretary of State of Georgia Brad Raffensperger to change the votes and asked for 11, 780 votes to be changed (he lost Georgia by 11,779). Clearly a criminal act of trying to influence an election. More cowardly GOPs are backing Trump in the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate (Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) • Big discussion and debate in the press about whether to give more single doses of vaccine and wait few months before the second dose. The UK is doing this with the AZ vaccine. There is no scientific data to justify this. They are doing it because they want to give more people first doses. Our problem is not more people than doses, it is that we are not injecting as many people (4 million) with the doses that we have (14 million). Much discussion in the press about this. • Had Zoom meeting with Biden and Harris. Meeting led by Jeff Zients. Present was Ron Klain, Natalie Quillian, Marcella Nunez-Smith, David Kessler, Vivek Murthy, Rochelle Walensky, Bechara Choucair. Topic was that Biden wants to announce in a speech 3 transforming steps that he will initiate regarding vaccines. Natalie presented our plan and there was discussions about using pharmacies first and then as we get more doses, opening up “Community Vaccine Centers”. I described status of the outbreak. Biden is much more in favor of federal presence than is the Trump administration. Slide deck is below: Slide Deck - COVID Policy Briefing 1 5.pd PRESS: Interview with Newsweek UK; AP Online interview with Lauren Neergaard;