Coronavirus Crisis Update: Ashish Jha “Equity is All About the Ground Game.”

Ashish Jha, a determined optimist, gives the Biden administration an A- for its first six weeks. The picture today is “dramatically better.” “A light switch went on after January 20,” when states could suddenly ask for – and receive – help. An “extraordinary bump-up” in vaccinations is underway: “We have more vaccines coming than we will know what to do with.” More needs to happen in building out testing, developing strategies for variants, and planning for when variants may escape vaccines. “The equity agenda is not going well.” While it may be “easy to look like a superstar compared with Trump,” the Biden administration “needs to lean in heavily” with its political and diplomatic power to shape the international environment to control outbreaks, bridge the dangerous vaccine gap, and increase manufacturing. Surplus vaccines will be key: “The problem is not money, it is vaccines.” Ahead of us lies “a really good summer and fall.” 

Ashish Jha is Dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health.