Wednesday, February 12, 2020

45,172/1115 Individual reports are coming out about various clinical characteristics. Unreviewed report now of virus in saliva of infected people. Let us see what kind of reponse that gets. Very busy day today with 4 Congressionald briefings! Also, complicated by wake of Eric Scorce today and funeral tomorrow. Much stress. First we briefed House members at Rayburn led by Rosa DeLauro, Nita Lowey and Tom Cole. Then we went to the Senate Dirksen to brief senators led by Lamar Alexander. Then to Capitol Visitors center to brief House members led by Eliot Engel. Then to Majority hosue leader Steny Hoyer’s office to brief members. Steny was profuse in his praise for me, which was a little embarrassing On my way out of White House from the 4:00 to 5:00 PM Task Force meeting, ran into Larry Kudlow, who has become my new best friend. He joked about how many years I have been doing this and he has been following my career. His main question was when is this COVID19 going to crash the economy, i.e. when does he need to start worrying about it. It told him that we are OK for now but this could change rapidly if we start seing sustained person-to-person transmission. He asked me to keep him informed when in my opinion things are starting to go bad Having our second big multipeson conference call this AM with Mike Ryan, Tedros and WHO, Bruce Aylward (Canadian) called from China. He is part of WHO multi-national advance team in China. Still no invitation for US representation from China to be part of group. Azar getting very angry and blaming Tedros for not pushing with China to get us on the group. Azar feels that Tedros in bowing to Xi Jinping who does not want USA. Tough situation since Tedros and WHO depends greatly on China and often bows to them. PRESS: WTOP Radio; Bloomberg TV (by phone;