Health experts recommend upgrading your mask

Nationwide and here in Ohio, we're in the middle of an incredibly infectious surge of COVID-19 cases. The United States is poised to surpass its recordfor COVID-19 hospitalizations with 142,000, as soon as today.

Cases are mainly due to the Omicron variant, with Ohio also setting new records for inpatient hospitalizations in the new year. Many health experts are now recommending upgrading your cloth masks in some way, to fight against transmission. But to what? Double masking? Surgical mask? The N-95? 

What is the guidance for children, whose faces might not fit into those more protective, but larger masks? We are going to start this hour on the "Sound of Ideas" by asking those and other questions to a doctor at University Hospitals, Dr. Claudia Hoyen, who is the director of pediatric infection control at UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital.

Then, we'll learn about a New York Times series that followed the same six older adults aged "85 and Up", since 2015 and that just came to a close because the last participant passed away last month. The writer, John Leland, joins us to share life lessons we can all learn from the series. 

And, my conversation with Cleveland native, & pulitzer prize winning writer, Kathryn Schulz on her new memoir, Lost & Found.

Resources

Notes From the End of a Very Long Life by John Leland

A Conversation with Kathryn Schulz and Andy Borowitz

Cuyahoga County Library (Virtual)

Jan. 20, 7-8pm

-Dr. Claudia Hoyen, MD, Director, Pediatric Infection Control, UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital 

-John Leland, Metro Reporter, The New York Times & Author, Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year among the Oldest Old

-Kathryn Schulz, Pulitzer Prize winner, New Yorker staff writer & Author, Lost & Found