I've been quiet on here recently. Here's why:

We obtained U.S. cables and internal documents from inside Prigozhin's network. They reveal exclusive new details about how Wagner+co has expanded across the world and why Western officials are so concerned.

politico.com/news/2023/02/1… We've spent the past several months pouring over thousands of documents and verifying their authenticity.

We've put together an investigation that looks at how Prigozhin and Wagner have been able to expand so rapidly, including in Africa.

politico.com/news/2023/02/1…

***OK, now for how we followed the money and found that these four orgs (Gates, CEPI, Wellcome, Gavi) spent $10 billion on Covid-- the same amount as the leading US agency fighting the virus abroad

All thanks to @annette_choi

politico.com/news/2022/09/1… Here's what we found when we followed the money on the global Covid response:

Gavi spent more than any of the other three organizations operating COVAX, the initiative to help low- and middle-income countries secure Covid vaccine doses.

NEW: 🚨Our 7-month investigation charts the journey through which much of the international response to Covid passed from governments to a privately overseen global constituency of NGO experts connected to the Gates Foundation. In partnership with @WELT
politico.com/news/2022/09/1… We examined meeting minutes, financial + lobbying disclosures and tax documents, which revealed the groups’ spending during the pandemic. It is the first comprehensive accounting of expenditures by global health orgs on the fight against Covid.
politico.com/news/2022/09/1…

SCOOP: The CDC has found more than 120 instances over the past two years in which people may have died from long Covid.

The analysis is the first of its kind and is the beginning of the agency's look at the relationship between long Covid and mortality.

politico.com/news/2022/06/0… NCHS is set to publish these numbers in the coming days. It reviewed death certificates that listed long Covid or similar terminology.

More on what the office is looking for/at:

politico.com/news/2022/06/0…

This is a really big deal. RDIF is really important to Putin personally and is run by one of his closest supporters, Dmitriev

https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1497339078039195648

I tweeted about this the other night, but I will lay it out again. RDIF has an interesting history. It's technically one of Russia's four sovereign wealth funds. But it operates differently than the rest.

Biden says "let's see in another *month* or so if [sanctions] are working"" A lot can happen in a month, obviously, but there are already concerns in the aid/health world about what this means for people on the ground in Ukraine. A month more of shelling? More incursions? That can have huge humanitarian consequences.

NEW: Inside the CDC's pandemic response team's burnout dilemma.

“There’s no end in sight," one CDC official told POLITICO.

WALENSKY acknowledged the burnout problem to POLITICO and said she's taking steps to ease the workload on the team

politico.com/news/2022/01/1… HENRY WALKE on the CDC's pandemic response team's work: “It's the science around this and trying to understand how to mitigate the transmission. I think we've been challenged in trying to keep ahead of the science and keep ahead of the virus."

politico.com/news/2022/01/1…

NEW in Global Pulse, Gavi's Seth Berkley gets candid about the goal of vaccinating 70 percent of the world's population by mid year.

"That is a kind of a global aspirational goal," he said.

MORE here:

politico.com/newsletters/gl… "The question that will have to be answered in 2022 is: Do you want to try to continue to vaccinate with these vaccines against infection versus severe disease and death? If so, it is likely ... that it will require specialized variant vaccines."

politico.com/newsletters/gl…

NEW: Health officials say they can’t efficiently track and contain Omicron because the country still doesn’t have accurate and real-time data.

Over the past few months, Biden officials have relied on international data because they say it’s more reliable politico.com/news/2021/12/2… Two years into the pandemic the CDC’s data collection still relies primarily on state health departments that use a mix of often incompatible and outdated state systems to identify cases

politico.com/news/2021/12/2…

Great story by @josh_wingrove

Our public health data infrastructure is outdated and many state health departments don’t have the ability to match immunization records with lab reports.

More on this from us next week.

https://twitter.com/josh_wingrove/status/1472205041658380298

This makes tracking breakthrough infections incredibly difficult.

Here’s our investigation from the summer:

politico.com/news/2021/08/1…

NEW INVESTIGATION: A six-month probe by POLITICO found the U.S. could not adequately contain Covid-19 because state public health departments relied on outdated data systems and struggled to staff enough people to investigate and isolate positive cases.

politico.com/news/2021/08/1… Dozens of health depts relied on arcane programs to collect case information. The systems did not communicate with each other, which made it difficult for health officials to visualize where the virus was spreading and translate that info to the public

politico.com/news/2021/08/1…

NEW: Biden health officials trying to slow the spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant have largely given up on the possibility of reinstating mask and social-distancing rules in favor of a grassroots vaccine education campaign.

It’s not going as expected .. politico.com/news/2021/06/2… “What we don't want to have happen is we have a significant proportion of the population that's unvaccinated and you see an increase in the number of cases,” CDC’s Galloway said. “It could lead to another surge.”

politico.com/news/2021/06/2…

BREAKING: CDC is updating its guidelines for vaccinated individuals, saying they can travel domestically and internationally without a Covid-19 test as long as they wear a mask in public. Individuals who travel do not need to self-quarantine. UPDATE: CDC guidelines are now live

cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…

New: More than 1.7 million doses have been administered through the federal retail pharmacy program to educators, per an internal senior leadership briefing we obtained. NEW: 49.8 percent of 65+ population are fully vaccinated, the memo says.

Some professional news: I am joining Politico! I will be covering COVID-19. Tomorrow is my first day. That means today is my last day @thedailybeast. I will miss my colleagues here immensely.

Thread.

https://twitter.com/POLITICOPress/status/1363851363990568966

I’m looking forward to the next adventure —one that will take me away from my nat sec beat for a little while. I’m excited to jump fully into the COVID/healthcare reporting world.

The last three years at the Beast have been some of the best of my life.

NEW: The 60 generators FEMA sent to Texas are, as of this morning, sitting in a staging area in Ft. Worth waiting for delivery instructions.

10,000 gallons of diesel fuel also standing by. FEMA officials are waiting for instructions from Texas officials about were to send it FEMA says power outages and transportation impacts have affected COVID-19 vaccination delivery across several states with sites temporarily closed and rescheduling
appointments

Here's the most recent update from FEMA on the winter storms:

9 confirmed fatalities, doesn't include TX numbers

TX natural gas production curtailed; cold temperatures have caused natural gas wellhead “freeze-offs”

TX: 3.2 million (27%) customers without power ALSO: DOE issued emergency order to authorize dispatch of additional generation units to ERCOT region
-allows ERCOT to dispatch units to meet electricity demand through Feb 19, even if they exceed emission limits of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and carbon monoxide

I've covered wars oversees. I lived in Cairo during the revolution and the aftermath. Watching what happened today at the Capitol was eerily familiar to scenes I've seen take place across the world. I want to lay out a very rough timeline here from my reporting today. Thread. Reflecting back on the last several hours it's remarkable how long it took to get the situation even somewhat under control at the Capitol

Very quick update: the NG has been requested at the Capitol. Discussions underway

https://twitter.com/ErinBanco/status/1346902089096699904

There are about 300 NG that have been activated before this afternoon but it's unclear how many will respond directly in a LE capacity at Capitol vs security, checkpoints, etc

There have been concerns for weeks about the lack of clear comms between states and the admin about vaccine distribution. State officials feared there would be shortages and that they wouldn’t get what they were promised in terms of doses. We’ve been speaking to officials across the country who as of Monday still had no idea when they were getting their shipments

NEW: I've spent the past few days in hospitals in Providence to report on the dire COVID situation. The recent surge hasn’t just overwhelmed RI, it’s completely overrun it.

The vaccine arrived this week and docs didn't have time to celebrate

Dispatch: thedailybeast.com/rhode-island-i… Special thanks to all the healthcare workers who spent time with me. S/o to @meganranney and the home healthcare nurses who don't have enough PPE to take care of patients when they return back to their families

thedailybeast.com/rhode-island-i…