Saturday, March 7, 2020

102,969/3511. Meeting at Deb Birx home to hash out issues in preparation for TF meeting today (Saturday) at 4:00 PM. Tom Frieden comes down from NYC, Joe Grogan, Steve Redd (now detailed from CDC to Deb), Matt Pottinger, Olivia Troye. We make decision to recommend that staff of all nursing homes and extended care facilities act as if they are infected and wear masks, wash hands, etc. in dealing with clients. Also, limit visits of family members, and if they do visit, they should do as the staff does. Still have not made decision about whether to ban all embarkment s of cxruise ships for USA. We want to do this, since we do not have the facilities to quarantine thousands of people on a single ship when we know from DOT that at any given time there are 99 cruise ships out there with >300,000 people that are planning on disembarking at USA ports. Announced last night that Mick Mulvaney is out as Chief of Staff to POTUS and will now be Special Envoy to Northern Ireland (Yikes!) At Deb house we learm that 2 people from the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affaitrs Committee) meeting are infected and one who has now actually gotten sick has hugged Mark Meadows, the new Chief of Staff to POTUS. I speak with Sean Conley, Physician to POTUS, and tell him that Meadows needs to be isolated at home now; he needs to be tested now; if negative, then OK, but still isolate 14 days’ if positive, we have a real problem sine he has made contact with many public Figures, possibly the POTUS already. VERY INTENSE TIMES. Meadows test is negative. Will isolate for 14 days. Gov. Cuomo calls my cell and wants me to help him get masks from the WHO supply since the SNS does not have enough to service New York. I give him Stewart Simonson’s cells phone and they connect. Had important TF meeting in Sit Room. VP phones in from Mar a Largo. At least 4 cruise ships with crew members who were on the Grand Princess are out there. Could be a logistic nightmare. I propose that we urge seniors with co-morbidities to avoid crowds, unnecessary travel, particularly on planes and absolutely on cruises as part of my campaign (see above) to protect the vulnerable. I write (handwritten at the Table) a statement for the State Department to publish with DHS that this is our recommendation. VP loves it (on phone) and says let us call it the Fauci doctrine.