Monday, January 18, 2021

Global – 94,000,000/2,000,000; USA – 23,800,000/397,000 Zoom meeting at 7:30 AM with JZ and the team + Jake Sullivan – discussed the restrictions on travel to RSA, Brazil and perhaps other countries. Leaning towards requiring PCR 72 hrs before board to USA followed by Ag test upon boarding followed by Ag test within 3 days of landing + quarantine. Will present to Ron Klain and POTUS after inauguration. Deb Birx’s next to last TF note: This is the last metro case analysis. We are seeing mostly significant improvements or major metros holding at a high plateau. I am worried about the 12 metros that are still increasing and one of them is DC. I walked some of the areas downtown on Sat while I was moving out of my State Dept office and there are major feeding tents set up around downtown for the workers and National Guard – these can be super spreading locations and the National Guard is from around the country including hotspots. National Guard troops must be tested and must be tested when returning but I worry we are creating a massive viral spreading event as troops deploy to DC and then return home and the co-mixing of local metro police with National Guard. That said by all indicators we are stabilizing as a country and improvements should continue. New hospital admissions are down across the country and is super spreading events can be managed we should continue to see improvements as more states will be able to utilize health personnel to support massive vaccination. On the personal level getting the elderly – the highest risk group over 75 - immunized is incredibly difficult. We have the entire family working to secure sites for my parents but you need to be tech savvy and able to constantly refresh sites and search multiple county and state websites. Then you have to be able to transport and move them to the vaccine sites. We think we may have secured a PG county option for this week but if elderly do not have tech support or outreach and transportation support this will be incredibly difficult for them. Deb 1. For the first time in weeks all indicators except fatalities are improving and are either flat at a high plateau or declining over 7 days. This suggests with full data triangulation that we have reached the post-Holiday peak in most of the country and declines should continue with continued mitigation. These gains can be sustained and can accelerate if behavior change holds and testing increases to find the asymptomatic cases to prevent community spread Had farewell conversation with Vice President Pence. I called up Marc Short to ask him to have the VP call me today since I was not sure that I would be able to attend (virtually) the last TF meeting this Tuesday. The VP called and we had a very touching and person discussion saying how much he respected me and how the TF would not have been able to accomplish what it did without me. He was very touched. I told him how important it was for his legacy that he acted with such dignity and resolve over the last days when he refused to go along with Trump’s attempt to get him to overthrow the election results. WE parted by saying we will always be there for each other. Received material from Beth Cameron for my announcement on early AM of Jan. 21 that we will re-join the WHO. I will edit it and get it re-approved. Very nice that I have been chosen to be head of delegation to the WHA in Geneva (virtually) to make this announcement. Summary of some events over past few days/weeks: Jeff Zients calls me multiple times per day checking facts, etc. I brought up to him that it would be a good idea for continuity that he keep on Francis as NIH director since if he does not act to tear up the required letter of resignation, Francis automatically is gone and we have an acting (which would not be bad since Larry Tabak is great). Ned Sharpless is in the same boat as presidential appointee at NCI. And so I mentioned to Jeff that we should keep Ned on and he made it happen. And so, in fact I am responsible for keeping the NIH and NCI Directors in their jobs. A surprise is that Harold Varmus called me up and expressed great concern that Francis was staying on. He said many substantial members of scientific community (Bruce Alberts, Shirley Tilghman, etc) are quite concerned and feel that it is time for a change. I explained to Harold that this was probably temporary and related to need for continuity related to COVID-19 efforts. He is trying to get momentum to have this reversed. Harold has always felt that change is important PRESS: TNT “The Arena” with Cari Champion;