Ashish Jha: Covid-19, Vaccines, and the Outlook for 2021

Where do things stand in the US and around the world with Covid-19? How is the vaccine rollout affecting the course of the pandemic? How concerned should we be about new variants? When will we get kids back in school and the country open for business again? To discuss these and other questions, we are joined by Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. While noting the possibility of threats from new variants, Jha shares a guardedly optimistic perspective on a path to relative normality over the spring and summer, and into the fall. Jha argues we should focus on essential things: leading with the vaccine rollout, complemented by efforts to ramp up testing capacity to make crowded venues safer—and that we should devote ample energy and resources to resuming in-person learning as soon as possible. According to Jha, we can do better than the recent CDC guidance suggests and should be able to reopen most schools this spring.