Monday, December 21, 2020

Global USA Much concern and discussion about the mutant virus (see above) that is in UK and South Africa. I will be speaking with the Biden people about this today. 1. The Northern Plains, Upper Mid-West, Rocky Mountain States and Heartland continue to improve decreasing test positivity, cases, hospitalizations. Strong vigilance messaging should continue to ensure decline through the upcoming Holiday season. 2. The Coasts (80% of the population) are now driving the increasing cases, hospitalizations and soon deaths. The rate of rise is concerning, however due to aggressive mitigation there is a more rapid stabilization of cases then we saw in the Fall with the center of the country which should lead to an earlier peak if the Holiday Season surge can be blunted. Had Zoom call with Biden. Also, present were Ron Klain, Jeff Zientz, Rochelle Walensky; Natalie Quillian; Vivek Murthy. Discussion centered around: 1) state of the outbreak (me); 2) Mutants from UK (me); 3) vaccine rollout (Vivek). I strongly recommended not banning travel from UK. Ron Klain and Biden were not so sure. Ron suggested that we might have a 10 day ban over the holidays. I pushed back and said that this would not help since the virus would come from other places. I suggested that we very explicitly state that we are watching this very carefully and are all over it. The potential effects of the mutation is : 1) increased transmissibility; 2) increased virulence; 3) evasion of protection from vaccine (and to some extent from mAb). All of these are testable. Bottom line – do not do anything precipitous, but watch it closely PRESS: BBC Interview with Jeremy Farrar to be aired on December 28, 2020;SiriusXM Sports – Mad Dog with Chris Russo; Telemundo TV with Randy Serrano; Fivethirtyeight ABC Podcast with Anna Rothschild; PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff;