Dr. Ashish Jha

Dr. Ashish Jha started 2020 thousands of miles from home, taking a sabbatical in Europe from his academic post at Harvard. Then the coronavirus pandemic arrived in the U.S.

Jha, an expert on pandemic preparedness, returned to Massachusetts, and his blunt talk on the unfolding disaster was soon hard to miss on national news and social media.

Jha estimates his office fielded more than 100 media requests a day at its peak. He went from a few hundred Twitter followers pre-pandemic to more than 130,000 by December.

"For me, the purpose of doing this was to fill a void and make sure people received credible scientific information," said Jha, who recently became dean of Brown University's School of Public Health in Providence, Rhode Island. "I thought it would go for a week or two, but the demand never really let up."

In another time, experts like Jha would have enjoyed the quiet esteem, respect and relative obscurity afforded by academia. But for better or worse, the coronavirus pandemic thrust virologists, epidemiologists and other normally low-profile scientists into the pop culture crucible.

Jha admitted he wasn't prepared for the level of racial animus his pandemic commentary has generated — a complaint shared by other scientists of color.

A native of India who has lived in the U.S. since the 1980s, he said much of it is of the "go back to your country" variety that he simply shrugs off.

But a gut check moment came in November, when Jha began receiving death threats after testifying before Congress and strongly rejecting assertions made by Trump and others that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine could also protect people against COVID-19.

Jha said the threats were concerning enough that he notified local police, who sent patrols past his family's Boston-area home as a precaution.

Now, as 2021 dawns, he said he is looking forward to being less in the public glare.

When President-elect Joe Biden takes office, Jha said, he expects federal government authorities will take their rightful role as the public face of the nation's pandemic response, after being diminished and undermined at critical times this year.

"That's who the American public needs to be hearing from more," he said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and experts like Fauci at other federal agencies. "I'm a poor substitute for what's needed."