Dr. Ashish Jha says there are reasons to be optimistic about the future of the Pandid-19 pandemic, telling MSNBC on Monday that the United States is doing an “incredible job” with the launch of the vaccine.
But the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health also acknowledged that the country is at a “very complex and somewhat confusing” time, as restrictions begin to ease as vaccination efforts continue.
“On the one hand, people should be very optimistic about the future, and then you hear about things like variants and the fact that we still have 60,000 cases going on every day,” said Jha. “And this complex set of facts makes it difficult to know what is safe and what is not safe to do.”
THE updated guidance released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, advising that fully vaccinated individuals can meet with other vaccinated people inside the home without wearing a mask or social distance, was “fantastic,” said Jha.
The doctor said he expected the country to be on track to administer three or four million doses a day “soon”.
“Fun to have a competent government!” he wrote on Twitter.
Jha said he thought the country was well positioned, in terms of supply and distribution, to reach that benchmark. But at a certain point, he predicted that the United States could reach a point where there will not be “enough weapons to put vaccines in” due to hesitation among Americans.
“We need to work on it now,” said Jha. “I really think that a lot of people who are on the fence will jump off the fence when they see people being vaccinated and doing well. But there are other people who are going to be resilient and we’re going to have to really involve people to find out what’s holding them back and try to deal with them [concerns]. “
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