Ashish Jha: On the Delta Variant, Vaccines, and Where We Stand

Conversations with Bill Kristol

Where do things stand with Covid-19? How has the emergence of the Delta variant changed the situation? How might things look in the US as we had into the fall? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Jha explains why the highly-contagious Delta variant, coupled with greater-than-anticipated resistance to vaccines, now threatens a return to normalcy that seemed on track throughout the late spring. Today, all Americans have ready access to vaccines that are extraordinarily effective at preventing hospitalization and death. Jha stresses that exposure to Covid now is much more likely than just a few weeks ago, perhaps inevitable, so the choice in America now is binary: to get vaccinated, or get infected. Jha and Kristol consider choices in public policy and in the private sector we face now including whether to mandate vaccines, the role of the CDC and FDA, and the global dimension of the pandemic—and the ramifications of these choices as we look ahead to the reopening of schools, business, and other indoor activities, in the months ahead.