It's the dog days of summer. That means extreme August heat, final getaways, and for the fourth

consecutive year, another COVID surge. Both my husband and I contacted COVID in June.

My wife and I had COVID over the summer. We're both vaccinated and boosted.

For me, it was barely an allergy attack. Wouldn't you know this summer? I came down

with COVID. First, he was fed down for about four days.

Unfortunately, after three and a half years, I finally came down with COVID.

On July 24th, I got off of cruise ship in Seattle, Washington, and tested positive for COVID two days

later. My youngest son contracted it COVID from a summer camp. He attended.

I have an infant son that got out of his well. He barely even noticed.

Thanks for all those messages. The World Health Organization declared the pandemic

over three months ago. There was a 12% spike in hospitalizations according to the latest

tracking data from the Centers for Disease Control. That data is from July 23rd to July 29th,

and is compared to the week prior. For this installment, for our in-good health series,

we discuss with our panel of experts how we should think about COVID, masking,

and vaccines in our everyday lives. I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast,

where we get to the heart of the story. We'll be back after this short break. Stay with us.

Let's get into the conversation and welcome our guests. Dr. Selene Gounder is a senior fellow and

editor at large for public health with KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News.

Dr. Gounder, thanks for coming back on. Great to be here. Also with us is Dr. Paul Offett.

He's the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

He's also a member of the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Panel. Dr. Offett, it's great to have you back.

Thanks for asking me. And Angela Rasmussen is with us. She's a virologist at the vaccine and

...