Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Global – 170,800,000/3,600,000; USA – 33,100,000/592,200 • I gave a taped speech today to the opening session of the G7 meeting taking place in England. I spoke about the similarities between the COVID-19 pandemic and the HIV aids pandemic. I called upon all partners to collaborate and to continue to support science. Secretary Becerra is representing the United states at the health component of the G7 meeting. Also, in line with my participation virtually in the G7 meeting , I took part in a discussion on the G7 global vaccine confidence summit. It was a discussion together with John Nkengasong, the director of the African CDC moderated by Vivienne Parry. We discussed the issue of vaccine hesitancy in various countries throughout the world particularly in the United states and in southern Africa. Nat Geo film people are also very upset about the shit storm caused by the book people and have come out with a statement that it is their book, not mine and I have not received any royalties or other payments from the book or the documentary. Unfortunately, the damage is already done. • Met with POTUS and VPOTUS in Oval with Jeff Zients and Natalie Quillian. I discussed with him the mechanisms and implications for the mRNA vaccine platform technology. He was very grateful for the discussion and as usual vice president Harris asked excellent questions. He told the story that when he was at Rehobeth beach in Delaware with his family, three burly MAGA-type men approached him and started trash talking him. The Secret Service were very discreet and did not want to make a scene; however his daughter Ashley jumped in front of them and started screaming at them to stay away from her father. The lesson of the story was that young women have more guts and fire then certain Secret Service agents. PRESS:The story on my emails is in the print version of the Washington Post this morning; Month of Action (promo video); Podcast with the George Bush Foundation – All the Best with Sam LeBlond; WGN Donilon Report (Leland Vittert) – was not the original person to interview me and attacked me about e-mails and Wuhan; NPRE “Science Friday” with Ira Flatow; Time Health Summit Interview by Alice Park with Stephjane Bancel; Time Children’s Interview; NBC Nightly News; MSNBC with Nicole Wallace; CNN defends me on the e-mails issue: Thousands of emails from and to Fauci during the pandemic's early days were published. Here's what they show about him By Christina Maxouris and Paul LeBlanc, CNN Updated 6:01 PM ET, Wed June 2, 2021

at 8:30 a.m. EDT with Alexandra Ellerbeck Early in the coronavirus pandemic, Anthony S. Fauci expressed skepticism that deaths in the United States would top 500,000. He called the public’s fascination with him “surrealistic.” And he assured China’s top public health official that “We will get through this together.” Hundreds of pages of emails obtained by The Post and BuzzFeed News through Freedom of Information Act requests confirm the way Fauci is already viewed by many — as diplomatic, tactful and responsive to inquiries from the public, a quality which often kept him up late at night answering emails. “The correspondence from March and April 2020 opens a window to Fauci’s world during some of the most frantic days of the crisis, when the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was struggling to bring coherence to the Trump administration’s chaotic response to the virus and President Donald Trump was seeking to minimize its severity,” The Post's Damian Paletta and Yasmeen Abutaleb write. “Fauci’s actions during that period and beyond remain an intense focus for many Americans and political leaders,” they add. “During daily televised briefings at the White House, Fauci emerged as an at times reluctant — and polarizing — media star: To Trump supporters, he was a contrarian who seemed to undermine the president at every turn, while others viewed him as a reassuring voice of reason.” “The emails show that he was inundated with correspondence from colleagues, hospital administrators, foreign governments and random strangers — about 1,000 messages a day, he says at one point — writing to seek his advice, solicit his help or simply offer encouragement.” Here are five takeaways from Fauci’s emails. 1. Fauci stayed far away from any Trump-bashing. Trump blasted the public health expert throughout the pandemic, at one point threatening to fire him after the November election. And from time to time, Fauci would criticize the administration's response in interviews, although almost always indirectly (in October, he told The Post the country needed an “abrupt change” in public health behaviors). In Fauci's correspondence, he was even more circumspect. In April 2020, Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, emailed Fauci about some apparent crossed wires before Easter Sunday. At the time, Trump was starting to butt heads with public health officials as he tried to move on from the pandemic. “You correctly noticed the symptoms but misdiagnosed the root cause,” Short wrote in a heavily redacted email that closes: “Apologies for a poor poker face.” Fauci responded: “Thanks for the note. Understood. I wish you a peaceful and enjoyable day with your family.” In another exchange, a former acquaintance wrote to Fauci that “The leadership from the top is utterly lacking and incompetent and dangerous to the American people.” “Thank you for your note,” Fauci wrote back. “I hear you!” 2. Fauci didn't like the public adoration. “Our society is really totally nuts,” Fauci wrote in an email he forwarded, which included the link to an article titled “'Cuomo Crush and Fauci Fever' — Sexualization of These Men Is a Real Thing on the Internet.” On March 31, a colleague at the National Institutes of Health sent Fauci an article from The Post with the headline, “Fauci socks, Fauci doughnuts, Fauci fan art: The coronavirus expert attracts a cult following.” “Truly surrealistic. Hopefully, this all stops soon,” Fauci replied. In another note, he added: “It is not at all pleasant, that is for sure.” 3. Fauci accepted a sort-of apology from the director of China's public health agency. George Gao, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, had been quoted in Science magazine as saying the United States was making a “big mistake” by not telling people to wear masks in spring 2020. Gao, who has long been friends with Fauci, reached out personally to clarify his remarks. “I saw the Science interview, how could I say such a word ‘big mistake’ about others? That was journalist’s wording. Hope you understand,” Gao wrote to Fauci in a March 28 email. “Lets work together to get the virus out of the earth.” “I understand completely. No problem,” Fauci wrote back. “We will get through this together.” 4. Fauci defended himself to colleagues. In April 2020, prominent oncologist Ezekiel Emanuel wrote to Fauci that he was “perplexed” by his “seeming strong endorsement” of remdesivir. Fauci had publicly praised the antiviral drug, which had appeared effective in treating coronavirus patients. “Was it just a bit forced?” Emanuel wrote. “My reading was the data was weak and in normal times for normal disease it is not enough to approve. And very unlikely to really impact COVID-19 disease pattern- -regardless of supply issues.” Fauci resisted the characterization, replying that he didn't “'strongly' endorse it.” “I specifically said it was not a knockout drug and was only a baby step in the direction of developing more and better drugs,” Fauci wrote. “I said that it was important because it proved in a well-powered, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial that one can suppress the virus enough to see a clinical effect, as modest as the effect was. I do not think I forced anything.” In an email the following day, Emanuel sent another email apologizing to Fauci and inviting him over for dinner “on the porch.” In another email, Fauci pushed back against Gregg Gonsalves, a prominent Yale School of Public Health epidemiologist, after Gonsalves had appeared to insinuate that Trump was influencing him and other public health leaders. “Gregg: I am surprised you included me in your note,” Fauci wrote. “I genuflect to no one but science and always, always speak my mind when it comes to public health. I have consistently corrected misstatements by others and will continue to do so.” 5. Fauci corresponded with a wide array of people. He didn't just hear from administration and public health officials. The emails also show exchanges with members of Congress and regular citizens. Fauci certainly didn't answer every single email he received, but the tranche shows he made an effort to respond amid the many demands on his time. “The medical director of the National Football League Players Association asked Fauci for a confidential briefing on how to safely start the next NFL season,” Damian and Yasmeen write. “A documentary filmmaker working on a forthcoming Disney-backed biopic asked to ride along as Fauci drove to work. An adviser to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates expressed concern about Fauci’s health. And a senior House Republican told Fauci to ‘keep being a science truth teller’ despite skepticism about the virus from other GOP lawmakers and Trump himself.” “I was getting every single kind of question, mostly people who were a little bit confused about the mixed messages that were coming out of the White House and wanted to know what’s the real scoop,” Fauci said in a recent interview. “I have a reputation that I respond to people when they ask for help, even if it takes a long time. And it’s very time consuming, but I do” respond. Thousands of emails from and to Fauci during the pandemic's early days were published. Here's what they show about him While many federal government staffers prefer the phone to email, this correspondence offers a rare glimpse into Fauci's frantic schedule and polite, to-the-point demeanor during the time he emerged as a rare source of frank honesty within the Trump administration's Covid-19 task force. But they also reveal the weight that came with the role. By Christina Maxouris and Paul LeBlanc, CNN