Thursday, September 2, 2021

Global - USA - Weekly average 149,000 cases/day Important reflection about “controlling the message” - I thought I would make this comment now since it is something that has been ongoing for some time. It relates to the fact that this administration particularly in the form of Jeff does not at all want to interfere with the science or dictate what the science should be saying. This is completely different from the interference with science and the actual contradiction of science that was so rampant during the Trump administration. However, in the situation where we came out with the statements that we should begin boosters on the week of the 20th of September and at 8 months from the time individuals finish their original immunization regimen, it is clear that the timing was not totally science driven . It was logistically driven. In other words, we found out in late July that it was clear based on the hint of what we were seeing here in the United States and what the Israelis were seeing that we would need to boost. From a logistics standpoint we could not begin to do that until September which would put it eight months following the time that the first people got their vaccination in January. And so the eight month timeframe was not based on any biological or clinical science. It was based purely on logistics. And yet whenever we have a discussion Jeff insists that we stay with eight months because the science dictates that it is 8 months. That is just not true. It very well may be and in fact it looks like it should be earlier, such as six months. The reason Jeff did not want to change or veer away from 8 months is that he did not want it to seem that we were saying one thing on one day, and a week or so later we would change it, for example changing from eight months to six months. I consider this a fixation on messaging which is really unnecessary. I would have said we chose eight months because it was already eight months from the time that people got their first vaccination. Jeff was afraid that we would get criticized that we should have been doing it earlier if we switch from eight to six months. I would have said what the truth was that we picked eight months at first because that was the logistic reason and as soon as we found out that it was better to do it at six months we would then change to six months. It is the truth and there's nothing wrong with that. Important principals meeting today in the SCIF. the meeting was led by Jake Sullivan of NSC . The subject matter was how the United states could take a leadership role in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the question arose about how we can get foreign countries including China and India to participate in the process of getting doses to low and middle-income countries. A number of the principals weighed in including Samantha Powers, Tony Blinken, and others. Although I have a keen interest in this concept and I have been discussing it in detail with Jeff and with Peter Staley and David Kessler, I did not preemptively make any comments since they did not ask me to. However, in the future I will give my opinion as how we can best accomplish this goal.