Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Global 527,603,107/6,290,452; USA – 83,949,036/1.002.067 It is becoming very clear that there is a different dynamic now that Ashish Jha has taken over from Jeff as the COVID coordinator. He clearly likes very much and wants to be the primary person dealing with the press. And for the first time we're seeing him wanting to do the White House press briefing alone without anyone else when it was always with Rochelle and I and sometimes Vivek. Also, it is clear that when calls are coming in for Sunday shows that the White House is putting him on instead. Since he is the boss of the coms people related to COVID, it is clear that he is telling them to do that. I do not begrudge him that because I know that he does want to be on TV a lot (and he is good at it) as he was before he took the job. But this is certainly a change in the dynamics. I'm still doing a lot of TV during the week but when it comes to things like the White House press conference and Sunday shows it is very clear that he is promoting himself above me and the rest of the team. Emily Bass wrote a terrific “Guest Essay” in the NY Times today both praising and criticizing the Biden administration or not taking a strategic approach globally towards COVID the way George W. Bush and I took towards aids with PEPFAR. It is a really good article to read for historic purposes: Guest Essay America Led on Global Health Before. It Must Do So for Covid.

, 5:00 a.m. ET A day or two ago Ashish, David Kessler, Rochelle, Vivek and I had an important meeting with Andrea Palm and Dawn O'Connell regarding the fact that we are running out of money and have no money left to purchase anymore monoclonal antibodies. If we do not purchase any the company will stop making it and an important tool in our toolkit will now be missing this could be disastrous for people who are immunocompromised and who do not have the capability of making anybody in response to vaccines. We pushed really hard but Andrea and Dawn had no solution for us since the Congress is still not granting us the supplement that we've been asking for for some time. We pushed hard and there was a bit of tension in the room, but we found out today have we made an impression on them since they have found some extra money to keep the antibody production going for at least a few weeks. The company, Lilly, does not want to commercialize the antibody (Bebtolivumab) and will only make it if the government pays for it. It looks like we had an impact on them when we stood together and insisted that we needed the money. Today, we had another important conversation among the team.I have been pushing and I was very explicit about it that we should make vaccine available to anyone younger than 50 years old who wants it. The emergency use authorization does not allow this right now but we are trying to find a way around this by setting up a meeting with Rob Califf to see if there is any mechanism that would allow us to make vaccine available. The reason we want to do that is that we have plenty of vaccine that we're not using and even though a fourth dose does not substantially increase the protection against severe disease (it does it a little bit), it could prevent symptomatic infection which could in the long run diminish the amount of long COVID that we experience. I came on very strong with my opinion that we should make vaccine available to anyone who wants a fourth dose at any age. Rachel was uncomfortable with this because she did not think we could get it through the FDA or the ACIP. I still insisted that we should go ahead and try. Had a very important meeting on Monkeypox today organized By Raj Panjabi (NSC pandemic preparedness leader). The meeting was attended by Rochelle Walensky, Harold Phillips of the White House AIDS office and a whole bunch of activists including Peter Staley, David Barr, and a wide range of others. Emily from my group was present as was several CDC folks. We all agreed that we need to put all our resources together and engage the LGBTQ community in our planning about testing, treating and vaccinating people with monkeypox. It was a wonderful meeting because it showed right from the beginning of what could be an important outbreak that the White House was working with the health authorities like myself and Rochelle as well as with the activist community. We vowed to continue to work together to try and make sure that this disease gets properly addressed and we do not underplay it or overplay it. There obviously is a danger of stigma generating from this disease because of its propensity to be infecting gay men. More to come on this new partnership. The New York Post is truly fabricating This has to do with the proposed “Pandemic treaty”: Beware Fauci’s scheme to empower the World Health Organization By Betsy McCaughey May 31, 202 PRESS: FOX with Neil Cavuto; “Life Itself” with Sanjay Gupta and interviewed by Seth MacFarlane (Virtually – I received a standing ovation from the audience at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego).