FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Thursday, November 25, 2021 https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2021-11-25 Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks. ============================================================================== DIARY ENTRY — Thursday, November 25, 2021 (Thanksgiving Day) Source: Tony's Diary Package, pp. 930–933 of 2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf Words: 961 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Global USA The New York Times had a Thanksgiving day write-up on A summary of where we are with COVID-19 in the context of an interview with me. The last question they asked was what I was thankful for at Thanksgiving. My response is given below: Adam: Last year we asked you what you’re thankful for, you very sweetly talked about your wife. What in the last 12 months are you thankful for — personally, professionally, or both? Fauci: Well, I’ll give you one of each. I’m professionally thankful that we successfully did something that was unprecedented in the history of vaccinology. And that is, we went from the sequence of a virus to a vaccine that was highly effective and safe. And we’ve been able to vaccinate a substantial proportion, although not as much as I would want, but a substantial proportion of the of the population. That’s professional. Personally, it’s the same thing. It’s no secret that I have been clearly targeted by rather radical elements who just keep attacking me every day, all day — Fox News, Breitbart — all those other crazies. And what I’m thankful for is what I said last year, that I have an incredible partner who is really amazing in her understanding of me and just keeps me grounded in reality when you have hand grenades being thrown at you every day. To have somebody that reminds you that what you’re doing is absolutely important for the health and the safety of the country, so don’t pay any attention to all that nonsense. That’s what I’m thankful for Major Serious Issue with new South African Variant!! - It is Thanksgiving Day and something has come up today that is very serious. I got an email from Jeff Zients who forwrsded an email from Stephane Bancel. Stephane was alerting Jeff to the fact that he had heard that there was a new variant in South Africa called B.1.1.529. See below: 25Nov2021 SGTF sequence report - N One of the problems is that the mutations that have accumulated which are now greater than 30 on the Spike protein including 10 mutations at the RBD would predict an escape from immune protection . In addition, the variant in RSA has rapidly gone from a couple of percent to double digits. Clearly, it is highly transmissible and has been demonstrated in people who have recovered from the Delta variant. This is very disconcerting since besides its transmissibility, this suggests that is eluding immune protection. I engaged in a bunch of phone calls with Larry Corey and John Mascola and multiple calls with Jeff Zients. I tried repeatedly to contact Rochelle Walenski, but she is not answering texts, emails or telephone calls. However, it turns out that there is a glitch in my connection to her text and my texts keep getting sent to an e-mail address. We will fix this. I finally go to her later in the evening. Larry Corey has arranged a zoom for 10:30 AM tomorrow with our South African colleagues including Glenda Gray, Penny Moore and Tulio de Oliveira who is the evolutionary biologist from South Africa. Of particular note, as I was scrambling around to contact people, the UK announced that they are banning flights not only from South Africa but also from Namibia , Lesotho , Botswana , Eswatini, and Zimbabwe. In addition, they are going to require PCR tests for all arrivals into the UK. Israel has also now announced it will ban its citizens from traveling to southern Africa covering the same countries as well as Mozambique. Again, with multiple phone calls with Jeff , we decided to wait until tomorrow morning when we will have contact with the South Africans to get a clear review of what is going on. When I finally connected with Rochelle later in the evening, it was clear that she really didn't have any idea what was going on. I am really surprised by this since the CDC should be all over these types of leads. In addition, when I began to probe it is clear that this issue had been circulating for a couple of days, and amazingly on the calls with the White House medical team Rochelle and the CDC never brought it up. This is really strange since I would imagine that with their global connections they would have been all over this. I have arranged to have both Rochelle and Francis Collins join the zoom call that Larry Corey set up for us to engage with the South Africans. Just heard tonight that the WHO has called a special meeting to address the issue: First meeting of Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) https://www.who.int/news/item/24-11-2021-first-meeting-of-scientific- advisory-group-for-the-origins-of-novel-pathogens-(sago) WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the First meeting of the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general- s-opening-remarks-at-the-first-meeting-of-the-who-scientific-advisory-group- for-the-origins-of-novel-pathogens-(sago) WHO calls special meeting to discuss new Covid variant found in South Africa with ‘a large number of mutations’ https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/25/who-calls-special-meeting-to-discuss- new-covid-variant-from-south-africa-with-large-number-of- mutations.html?fbclid=IwAR1VKOrWxAWjeHqVzJH0KLpPgPBRhEH lWZU KrN4bol3qFcrLgLYOjrO5aI Covid: New heavily mutated variant B.1.1.529 in South Africa raises concern https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59418127 New variant displaying a ‘big jump in evolution’ detected in South Africa. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/25/world/variant-south-africa-covid.html More later. I sent an email to Rochelle telling her that she better be prepared to move quickly with her team no later than tomorrow if in fact we decide that we are going to shut down travel from southern Africa. I tried to give her the benefit from my prior experience with shutting down from China as well as from the European states. She did not seem to be on top of things, and so I gave her a real strong briefing about the fact that she is going to have to move and move boldly.