On Call

 

Anthony Fauci, MD, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, Viking, 2024, 455 pp.

The memoir by the doctor who became a beacon of hope for millions through the COVID pandemic, and whose six-decade career in high-level public service put him in the room with seven presidents

Anthony Fauci is arguably the most famous – and most revered (and most reviled) – doctor in the world today. His role guiding America sanely and calmly through Covid (and through the torrents of Trump) earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern American history, but this was only the most recent of the global epidemics in which Dr. Fauci played a major role. His crucial role in identifying HIV and bringing AIDS into sympathetic public view and his leadership in navigating the Ebola, SARS, West Nile, and anthrax crises make him truly an American hero.

His memoir reaches back to his boyhood in Brooklyn, New York, and carries through decades of caring for critically ill patients, navigating the whirlpools of Washington politics, and behind-the-scenes advising and negotiating with seven presidents on key issues from global AIDS relief to infectious disease preparedness at home. On Call will be an inspiration for readers who admire and are grateful to him and for those who want to emulate him in public service. He is the embodiment of “speaking truth to power,” with dignity and results.

My Notes:

Pg. 93:  Data in sub-Saharan countries established that HIV/AIDS was predominantly a disease of heterosexual transmission concentrated in the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Pg. 215:  Smallpox vaccinations were discontinued in 1972.

Pg. 242f:  After the pandemic of 1918, the next pandemic occurred in 1957 with a brand-new influenza virus referred to as H2N2.  During that pandemic there were 1 to 2 million deaths globally.  A subsequent pandemic occurred in 1968 with a new influenza virus referred to as H3N2.  This pandemic resulted in roughly 700,000 deaths worldwide.  Since then, H3N2 influenza viruses have transitioned and evolved over the years to become the typical seasonal influenza virus that we experience with varying degrees of drifts (mutations) each year.  The most recent was referred to as H1N1 swine flu. The global mortality estimates from that pandemic ranged from 151,000 to 575,000.

Pg. 345:  It was on January 29, 2020, that Fauci, in a White House briefing, first heard of an emerging new viral illness in China.  By the end of January, it was reported that cases in China were increasing by about 25 percent per day and the US had its first travel-related case on January 20, 2020.

Pg. 358:  On February 25, 2020, Nancy Messonnier, a physician and an accomplished public health official who headed the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases told reporters that a pandemic in the US was clearly going to occur. President Trump was furious and by May Nancy was transferred to another job.

Pg. 411.  By January 2021, the US had been setting disastrous records COVID records in the industrial world, with a death toll topping 400,000.  However, cases were beginning to plateau.  (Eventually, 1 million died in the US).  By the end of Biden’s first hundred days, 200 million doses of vaccine had been distributed.

Pg. 432.  January 1, 2020, marked the start of the world’s third year grappling with COVID.  The country experienced a tsunami of cases—peaking at more than one million in one day alone.  Although it was clear that Omicron seemed to seek out everyone, vaccinated and boosted people had a very low chance of having a severe outcome.  We learned that there was a forty times greater chance of dying from COVID if you were unvaccinated.  And yet, only 62 percent of the US population had received all the recommended shots.