Welcome to Episode 9 of “COVID: What comes next,” an exclusive weekly Providence Journal/USA TODAY NETWORK podcast featuring Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and an internationally respected expert on pandemic response

COVID: What comes next - With Dr. Ashish Jha

With reports from England and elsewhere about a variation of the coronavirus causing alarm, Dr. Jha today discusses what is known at this point about transmissibility and the effectiveness of existing vaccines, saying “we're still learning but I think it's exceedingly unlikely that the vaccine will not work against this strain.”

Dr. Jha in this podcast also gives a good tutorial in lay terms about how the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines work, and the years of research that that allowed for them to be created and manufactured in record time. He also debunks some of the misinformation that surrounds the vaccines – that the virus can somehow enter a person’s DNA (it cannot).

Also today, Dr. Jha answers four of the many audience questions sent to the podcast:

-- If someone has had COVID-19 and recovered should they get the vaccine?

-- Can the people who receive the vaccine still be carriers of the virus?

-- How long is the vaccination good for once you get the vaccine? Does each manufacturer have a different length?

-- The vaccines are 95% effective, which means, statistically, that for one of every 20 persons who gets the vaccine, the vaccine will not work. How do you, or that person, know that the vaccine will not protect him?

If you have a COVID-related question, please send to [e-mail] with “Question for Dr. Jha” in the subject field. Dr. Jha will get to as many questions as he can, but regrettably, given the volume, he cannot get to all. And please note Dr. Jha’s advice: Questions regarding one’s personal situation should be put to your healthcare provider.

This weekly podcast is hosted by G. Wayne Miller, health reporter for The Providence Journal. It can be downloaded at