Monday, September 20, 2021

Over 2000 COVID deaths in USA yesterday I have to mention I had an extremely enjoyable interview with Bryant Gumbel (see below). I had not previously met him and I did not realize what an incredibly nice person he is. Just saying. Important day in the relaxation of prohibition on traveling to the United State. It was just announced that travelers from any foreign country can come to the United states provided they show proof of vaccination and are tested within 3 days before getting on the plane coming to the United states and submit themselves to contact tracing if necessary. This news was widely welcomed by countries such as the UK and others in the European Union. Had another important and somewhat contentious meeting with the medical team tonight. We were discussing the importance of having the ACIP be aligned with what the decision of the FDA was from last week. Rochelle indicated that she believed that the ACIP would be aligned with the FDA. However , in a friendly but firm manner, I challenged her and asked her what she herself would want to do and not to rely on being driven by the acip. The discussion went on until 10:45 PM. Jeff was again frustrated by the fact that he wanted Rochelle to lead the acip and not to be blindly led by the acip. He felt this way because he wanted to have an organized non confusing response to all of this. We all felt that we were in line until the meeting was over and Leslie Dach sent an email to Vivek and David indicating that Peter Marks from FDA just heard that the CDC and acip we're not going to accept the recommendation of FDA about providing boosters for those who's occupational or institutional status put them at an increased risk of infection. Peter got so frustrated that he said he will pull back that recommendation so that we don't get into a fight with the CDC. e-mails below: From: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Sent: Monday, September 20, 2021 10:40 PM To: Murthy, Vivek (HHS/OASH) <Vivek.Murthy@hhs.gov>; Kessler, David (HHS/IOS) <David.Kessler@hhs.gov> Subject: RE: READ THIS Definitely! This was exactly the point that I was worried about when I started off the conversation tonight saying that I was disappointed with what VRPAC arrived at and that I would be even more disappointed if the ACIP restricted that even more. My fears are realized. It looks like Peter is pulling back on the occupational and institutional exposure part in order to not be in conflict with what he projects the ACIP will do. We should definitely discuss this. From: Murthy, Vivek (HHS/OASH) <Vivek.Murthy@hhs.gov> Sent: Monday, September 20, 2021 10:20 PM To: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov>; Kessler, David (HHS/IOS) <David.Kessler@hhs.gov> Subject: Fwd: READ THIS We should discuss Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: