Jaya Bhattacharya |top| -

As we wrap up, I ask him the question that haunts every pandemic policy maker: Do you have any regrets?

He looks out the window at the Palo Alto sun. "I regret that we stopped talking to each other. We built a firewall between 'safe' science and 'dangerous' science. That firewall is still standing. And the next virus is coming." jaya bhattacharya

History will be cruel to one version of Jay Bhattacharya. To his enemies, he is the Pied Piper of preventable death. To his fans, he is the Cassandra who saw the mental health cliff, the learning loss, the second-order catastrophe. As we wrap up, I ask him the

When COVID hit, Bhattacharya did the math. While the world saw a linear curve of infections, he saw the shadow of a depression: canceled cancer surgeries, a generation of children losing literacy, nursing home lockdowns that turned into death sentences. We built a firewall between 'safe' science and

He doesn't say "I told you so." He doesn't have to. The silence does it for him.