Virus expert Dr. Ashish Jha frustrated by delayed vaccine rollout

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — With the new year just days away, the US is falling far short of its goal to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of the year — instead reaching only about two million.

Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, took to Twitter, criticizing the federal government for failing to coordinate with states.

“The task that was given to the military on Operation Warp Speed was get vaccines to states, but not much about what happens after that,” he said. “It is striking to me how much of a failure of federal leadership this really appears to be.”

Jha says the federal government could have put in resources like technical experts to help set up vaccination sites, or bring in the National Guard to help build the sites.

“The federal government should’ve been on this for months, setting up vaccination infrastructure so the moment vaccines got authorized, people should’ve been vaccinated more or less the next day,” he said. “Instead, they didn’t. They left everything up to states. And now states are scrambling.”

Dr. Jha says that’s not fair to states like Rhode Island, which he says is off to a good start with vaccinations, but still needs a federal partner, to help battle the current surge.

“How do we have fewer Americans dying?” he asked. ‘How do we get kids back to school? All of those are going to get delayed by weeks, if not months, because of what I think is just incompetence on the part of the federal government.”

So who’s doing it right? He points to countries like Israel, which is vaccinating one percent of its population every day. Meanwhile the US is struggling to reach that over a three-week period.

“We have more than enough capability and capacity,” Jha said. “The idea that we as a country can’t accomplish something complicated, I don’t buy it. But it does take leadership, it doesn’t happen on its own.”

He adds that he is encouraged by the new funding Congress just passed to provide additional help to states as they roll out the vaccine.