Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone, and happy Earth Day to you. Later in the show, we'll have our climate story of the week, which we're putting on Friday this week for Earth Day. Remember, we're doing this every week these days, not just when it's Earth Day, but we'll do it on Friday this week because it's Earth Day.

We'll run down a series of climate measures that President Biden has taken this week timed for today and assess his policies in general with respect to climate. Then we'll talk to a New York leader of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion. In the spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, you might say, they are engaging in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, training people on what to do when you get arrested and everything. Our two-part climate story of the week coming up later in the show.

Also with Eastern Orthodox Easter coming up this Sunday, we'll take calls from any of you listening today who are Eastern Orthodox. The patriarch of the Russian Eastern Orthodox Church has endorsed the invasion of Ukraine. Did you know that? What would Jesus think of that? Ukraine is a largely Eastern Orthodox country too, so that branch of Christianity is a spiritual battleground in this war on this Orthodox Good Friday. We will take your calls on that later this hour.

First, though, we are very happy to have as our lead guest this morning the New York City Health Commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan. As some of you know, he has come on this show a number of times, seven, we counted, with pandemic information before this appointment. He's a primary care physician and epidemiologist at Columbia. He's done HIV work in Rwanda and elsewhere. Under Mayor de Blasio, he was the founding executive director of the Health Department's Health Access Equity Unit. So important in our unequal health access world, right?

He's the rare doctor who also has degrees in epidemiology and economics for the really big picture. In the last few years, the role he came on the show for in the past, he was President and CEO of the Mental Health Organization Fountain House. I think it's very interesting that in this time of so much stress on people's mental health, that Mayor Adams chose someone with that particular background as his health commissioner. We say, Commissioner of the Health Department, as a shorthand, as I've been saying, but its full name is the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Dr. Vasan, commissioner, congratulations on your new job and welcome back to WNYC for appearance number eight.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Thank you, Brian, and good morning. Good morning to all the listeners. It's great to be back here.

Brian Lehrer: Can we start right there? Mental health is always important, but do you think after two years of pandemic loss and pandemic stress in all strata of society, that this moment in New York City is one when mental health policy is unusually important?

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: I think that's spot on, Brian. There's never been a more important time to center mental health in the life of this city and to center it in the health and public health agenda of this city. We've been through two years of isolation and trauma and stress and forced dislocation, and economic insecurity. Now is the time for us to really put all hands on deck and really think about how do we build a mental health system that's accessible, equitable, culturally competent in the most diverse city in the world, and really focuses in on the populations that are being hit hardest by both COVID and coming into COVID, our mental health crisis, which includes our young people, school-aged children, in particular, and people who came into this crisis with serious mental illness.

Brian Lehrer: Did the mayor say anything like that to you explicitly when he offered you the job? Dr. Vasan, we need someone with your background in mental health, not just medicine, to help lead the city at this time.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Yes. That was certainly a part of the discussions we had when I interviewed with the mayor in 2021. I'm honored to be in this role. The Department of Health is really a crown jewel in public health in this city, in this country, and in this world. It's an incredible honor to be leading it. It's also a particular honor to be leading it by centering mental health at this time, so yes, we definitely did talk about that.

Brian Lehrer: I saw you were in the news yesterday with the mayor and the State Attorney General, Letitia James, around money coming into New York from the national lawsuit settlement with opioid manufacturers. You were saying that another New Yorker dies of an opioid overdose every four hours in New York City. Is that a worse rate than before the pandemic?

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Yes. We're still collecting the data. Data takes time to come in and to be analyzed, but in the first two quarters of 2021, we saw record-high numbers of overdose-related deaths driven mostly by opioids, and that continues to rise. It is a five-alarm public health fire. The only reason we're not talking about it is the number one issue in our city in terms of health is because of the other number one issue, the COVID pandemic, but we lose more people to overdose than we do to automobile accidents, suicides and homicides combined. It is a moment for us to marshal resources. We're so grateful to the attorney general for holding people accountable who profited off of this epidemic and now are able to reinvest those resources into proven strategies to-- in harm reduction, in prevention, as well as in treatment.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Let's talk about COVID and COVID policy at this confusing time of cases and hospitalizations going up, masking and vaccine requirements coming down. The New York Times COVID tracker for New York State today, you may know I update the listeners with this from time to time. Today, the New York Times COVID tracker has the daily average of new cases up 62% from two weeks ago, hospitalizations and deaths now rising too, 44% more hospitalizations on average than two weeks ago, 50% more deaths. At the same time, to put those numbers into context, that's just 14 deaths yesterday. Just, every life is crucial, but 14 deaths yesterday statewide compared to 200 a day in January at the peak of Omicron One. How do you assess the current moment?

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Thanks, Brian. I'm glad you're out there sharing the data with New Yorkers every day because this has to be grounded in data. Our response is grounded in data and in science. We are at a time of rising cases. We have been in a time of rising cases over the last month and over the coming days, we expect to move into a higher level of overall risk in the city, which really means, look, we may be in a new wave of COVID cases, but we are more prepared than ever to respond to this wave because we have novel treatments that we didn't have at any other point in the pandemic response at this scale. We have a scale of rapid testing, as well as brick and mortar and PCR testing available to New Yorkers at a scale that we haven't had. Of course, we have life-saving vaccines and masks that can both protect against transmission, protect against severe disease, as well as slow airborne transmission through masks.

What my message to New Yorkers is, this is a time of preparation. It's not a time for more anxiety and panic, though I understand those emotions very, very well. It feels like Groundhog Day sometimes in this pandemic, but we are more prepared than ever because we have myriad tools. My recommendation is use those tools, New Yorkers. Mask up when you're in an indoor setting, get vaccinated if you're eligible, get boosted if you're eligible, get tested frequently, particularly if you're going in and out of large gatherings. We just had a holiday weekend. I hope that New Yorkers took my recommendation and got tested before they sat around the dinner table and broke bread and after. Certainly, wear a mask on public transportation and get treated by calling your doctor or calling 212-COVID19 to get access to treatment that we can deliver to your door in the same day.

Brian Lehrer: I have a seder spreader story that I'm going to tell after our conversation is over and invite listeners to call in with some of their holiday weekend stories and other things that are going on that are related. I keep seeing the city is on the verge of raising the official threat level from the low-risk code green to the medium-risk code yellow for the city. What metric would trigger that and how close are you to declaring it?

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: We're looking at three principal metrics amongst others, but three principal metrics are the overall rate of cases. That's the number of cases per 100,000 across all age groups and across all parts of the city. The second is the rate of hospitalizations due to COVID, over a rate over 100,000, and we look at that as crossing the threshold of 10 per 100,000 as a significant rate, and we also look at our bed capacity, what's the percentage of hospitalized patients taking up bed space that have COVID? How much space do we have in our health system, and we'd like to keep that number below 10% before moving into higher-risk categories.

We're trying to do two things with this risk system, which is, obviously, bend the curve and slow transmission and also protect our health system capacity so we never are in the position we were in at the beginning of the pandemic when I first started coming on the show and talking to you and the listeners about what we're facing, which was, at that time, a health care crisis as much as anything else.

These are our risk calculator and our risk guidance is in line with the CDC risk alert system, and so we're trying to make New Yorkers feel reassured that we're taking these decisions based on data and that they have a clear sense of when we need to move up and down in these alert systems, and what behaviors they can take on and what decisions they can make and choices they can make as individuals as well as what policies we may or may not be considering-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: How close are you to declare and code yellow and what policy changes at the policy level, not just the individual recommendation level, would code yellow trigger?

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Well, right now, we've just had this holiday weekend, New York City school kids are on spring break, so we're seeing natural variation in the amount of testing that's happening, that's normal. I think into next week, I would think that we have a trajectory of moving into a higher risk category into next week, given the variation and testing we've seen over this week, but the thing about this response is that we have to prepare before it happens, we have to start making choices as individual before we get into the higher risk category so that we can bend the curve.

We're recommending to individual New Yorkers wear masks, get vaccinated and boosted, get tested frequently, and get treated if you test positive. As far as policy decisions for the city, we feel comfortable making these strong recommendations to New Yorkers right now and giving them the flexibility to make those choices and to avail themselves of the available tools. We're always considering our policy positions on things and we'll be flexible according to what the virus does and shows us, but right now, that's where our position on citywide policies that we're making these strong recommendations to New Yorkers and that's what we're doing right now.

Brian Lehrer: We had the Federal Court ruling this week lifting the federal mask mandate for mask transit and leaving it up to localities. New Jersey then lifted its mask transit mask mandate for NJ Transit. New York has left it in place for mass transit in New York, at least for a few more weeks. I heard you saying before in an earlier answer, keep wearing your masks on mass transit. What about the metric for lifting the mask mandate for two to four-year-olds in school or daycare, that's a hot button one in the city right now that you've been retaining, for now, that mandate while cases are up, and they can't get vaccinated at that age. What would lead you to believe it's safe for that age to unmask in groups? We get calls like that every single opportunity that people have to call in.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Right, and I understand this is an issue of great importance to, particularly, a certain segment of New Yorkers. Look, our babies deserve our protection, they deserve an extremely low tolerance to hospitalization, to getting sick with COVID. I read an interesting piece from late 2021 about this strange sense of moral calm we have about childhood COVID versus moral panic. For some reason, as a society, we are not as aware, or maybe the message is not penetrating of how risky this disease can be for kids, even if they're infected at a lower rate than other populations.

We're looking for the first opportunity to lift that mandate safely. I think we can all agree that a time of rising cases and rising alert levels and risks is not that time, and so as we review the data every morning, we meet with the mayor and we meet as a senior team and review data, we're looking for that first opportunity to do so safely, but a time of rising cases is not that time.

Brian Lehrer: It brings us back to mental health too, right? One of the arguments for lifting mask mandates, very much including for those youngest kids, is that there's a real trade-off in public health terms between the amount of high-risk COVID transmission and the price in mental health declines in the population, including developmentally among little kids. What's your assessment of that mental health toll from masking toddlers? What would tip the scales into that being worse than the COVID risk itself?

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Well, this is a personal issue for me too. I've got three small children, one of them is under five, one of them wears a mask to go to daycare, and so I would love nothing more than for him to go to daycare without a mask, but I also care deeply about his overall safety and so that comes first, particularly when we know this is a preventable illness and he's not eligible for a licensed vaccine product yet. That's one thing to say.

I don't think there is compelling data, as far as I understand, about the mental health and developmental impacts as yet on children. That is not to say, there is no impact, that is to say, I think we need to continue to study it and I don't think there are any definitive conclusions. There is certainly a lot of emotion around this issue, a lot of feelings, but I don't think we're in an environment of strong data to allude to or assume that wearing of masks is leading to mental health, developmental, or emotional delay, or loss of function in two to four-year-olds.

I don't think we've seen that systematically in the data. I don't think it's been studied systematically, and so that would be my public health answer to the question. As a father, as a human being, as a parent, I get it. I understand why people are frustrated and want to see this change. I ask their forbearance, and I ask their patience, and I ask for us to understand that, at a time of rising cases and a time of rising risk for the city, it's not the time to be talking about taking masks off of kids, rather, I'd like to see the numbers moving in a different direction, and risk moving down into a lower level overall before we start to make those considerations, and we're looking for the first opportunity to do that safely.

Brian Lehrer: Now that we've talked about the littlest ones, let's end by talking about older people, and this is really, I think, more to get your take as a physician, advising people who are in a personal decision-making process, rather than a policy question, and that is if you have an opinion as a doctor about second boosters for people over 50. There's some disagreement, as I'm sure you know, in the medical community, over whether people should get them now or wait for more targeted boosters to be developed, or whether boosting against the current Omicron now might reduce people's receptivity to future COVID vaccines when perhaps new variants might be even worse? What's your medical advice to people over 50 who are now officially eligible?

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Everyone knows the FDA put out guidance that said people 50 and older are eligible. I think the data is probably strongest for people 65 and above but there's still good data around 50 and above. We think that folks who are eligible, 50 and above, for a second booster, that is four months after their initial booster, should go get boosted. I think anything we can do to lift the level of immunity in our city is recommended. As far as the timing of that, I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of the active conversation we're having about the timing of all of this, do we do this in the fall? Do we do this now?

I think at this point, we're just recommending that people go get boosted. We will eventually have to adapt to a vaccine schedule that fits the transmission patterns of this, remember, entirely novel virus which wasn't here but for two years ago, so I think we will eventually land on a schedule that seems to make sense for the patterns, whether they be seasonal or anything else, of COVID transmission, but right now, we're recommending that people go get vaccinated if they're eligible, go get boosted if they're eligible.

I also just want to raise up one issue which is I know we're talking a lot about living with COVID, and I know there's a strong desire to turn the page. It's still here with us and though we have all these tools, and though we have all these responses, the pandemic is still not being experienced equally by all New Yorkers, and that includes elderly, New Yorkers people with higher risk co-occurring conditions, and comorbidities, as well as people of color, lower-income people who have already borne the brunt of this pandemic.

The Black hospitalization rate during the Omicron wave was two times that of the rest of the city. It continues to be an issue that we're trying to prioritize here at the Health Department and as we think about our individual and our policy recommendations, as well as our programmatic efforts to get vaccines and lifesaving treatments and testing out into the communities and the zip codes that have been hit hardest.

I just want to message to New Yorkers that the choices you make to keep yourself safe, to wear a mask, to get tested and vaccinated and treated. Those are not just about you. They continue to have an impact on the most vulnerable, and they continue to be not only a tool for individual safety and risk mitigation. They are a tool of equity, they are a tool of fairness, and they're a tool of justice, and we have to see it that way.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. Ashwin Vasan the new commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. We look forward to having you many times as health commissioner. Thanks for coming on today and good luck in your new role at this pivotal time, really.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Appreciate you, Brian, always enjoyed being here and talking with you. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, will invite your calls on how your COVID precautions are evolving and how much new COVID you're seeing in your own life right now, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Are masks coming down in your neighborhood even as Omicron BA.2 is going up or what are you doing and seeing around you? 212-433-WNYC. I'll tell you one story of a family I know, Jewish family living in Florida. First indoor Passover seder in three years, no masks, no pre-seder testing, just six people, and three of them now have COVID, including two of the grandmas in their 80s. They seem okay for now, thank goodness, I am told. They were vaccinated, but no doubt, this family now wonders if they got too casual about COVID for their own good.

Anyone else with a story like that? 212-433-WNYC. If you ride NJ Transit or Amtrak, or if you're taking airline flights, now that the mask requirements are off, what are you seeing on those trains and buses and planes? 212-433-9692. Are most people still showing up with masks? Are you? How liberated or unsafe are you feeling as a result? Where are you on that spectrum of feeling liberated to feeling threatened by the rule coming off for the moment on those mass transit outlets? 212-433-WNYC.

We asked this the day when the court ruling first came down and we'll ask it again now that you've had a few days to sit with it, are you still planning that plane trip you were cooking up for yourself for this summer if it's a trip you don't have to take? Who's deciding to keep making those plans and who's deciding to cancel them, or who's just still deciding? 212-433-9692.

One other wrinkle here. I have one friend who told me they're feeling awkward these days going into stores because this friend is still wearing a mask routinely for indoor shopping, but in many places is encountering no other people wearing masks, or at least in some places, and is half embarrassed and half vigilant because this friend does go to work in-person indoors and doesn't want to have to be out sick or worse, so there's the new feeling of a new layer of awkwardness from masking or not masking in the increasingly voluntary environment.

Are you experiencing anything like that on any side of that? 212-433-WNYC or tweet. Of course, our Twitter feed is open. Tweet at @BrianLehrer, we'll watch your tweets go by on this too, and read some interesting ones. Bottom line, what are you doing and what are you seeing regarding masks right now? Any new awkwardness and are you keeping or changing your travel plans now that the transportation mask mandates are off in most places outside New York, at least for now? 212-433-WNYC or tweet @BrianLehrer. We'll take your calls and tweets after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls on what you're doing and what you're seeing regarding masks right now, and any new awkwardness you're experiencing. Are you keeping or changing your travel plans now that the transportation mask mandates are off in most places outside of New York? Michelle in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michelle. Thanks for calling in.

Michelle: Good morning, Brian. Brian, my neighborhood is pretty obedient. Most people I see here are wearing masks. I don't have a problem with wearing masks. I think that the mixed messages throughout the country as things that are confusing and the fact that we heard one minute, Omicron is down and it's up. That is something that we're experiencing here, but most of my friends and a mask is fine. The one thing I was concerned about but they didn't say I could mention it was the vaccinations. I'm just concerned about whether or not to get a third booster shot or not, a second booster shot.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that second booster. Well, Dr. Vasan gave his answer to that which is, do it and hope the science will continue to evolve and develop boosters to meet the moment as things change. That was the advice he just gave. I know there was a piece by Dr. Paul Offit who's very respected in this field who said he's not going to get one right now. He doesn't think it's necessary. Some people are saying, wait till the fall before the next bigger surge is likely to come. I'm not saying we have the bottom line here one way or the other, so I'd say keep reading into it and make your best judgment. Thank you for your call, Michelle. Bridget in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bridget.

Bridget: Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What are you doing? What are you seeing? Go ahead.

Bridget: Well, I work in a restaurant and I'm also a part of the dance community as is my partner. Specifically this week he's been in a rehearsal process and someone in that rehearsal process tested positive. Then at my restaurant, somebody tested positive and so he's been wearing masks at his rehearsal and I've been also wearing masks at my restaurant, but the combination of those two things has made it what I would say a stressful week at our house, and especially because in this rehearsal process, it's only like, and this is true for a lot of dance artists, it's like you have a concentrated one-week period of time.

I think it's just thinking overall about how the state of things right now and the ways in which having to be cautious and the distance of that is also with what's happening in the public world. That's coupled with the fact that we've been also having a bit harder time to get tested in our neighborhood. There was a local pharmacy that was started charging $125 for PCR, and then urgent care, $45 for PCR or $45 copay. Then the place that we used to get tested that's next door to us, they stopped being open on the weekend.

It's like still having to do all of the rigmarole, but living in a world that feels like it's not necessarily like required or mandated and so it can be stressful, and it feels like the burden is still really placed on the individual in that way.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, very much so. It sounds like that you work in two different fields and the behaviors are different in your two different workplaces. In the dance world, more cautious, in the restaurant world, more open.

Bridget: Yes, definitely. Yes, and I think it's like the dissonance between the two of us having to figure out how to manage that.

Brian Lehrer: Bridget, thank you for your call. Good luck out there. What a good reflection of the confusing time that we're in and the mixed message, if you want to call it that, or just variety of circumstances that we're going to encounter. A person who works in two different kinds of settings, the art setting of the dance world and the public people going in and out setting of the restaurant world, and obviously, you have to have your mask off to eat, which is reality. David in Elizabeth, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Yes, Brian. Hi, I've called before. I listen to your show and all that. I'm not trying to be whatever here, but we're living in two separate worlds. I was a substitute teacher. I got my vaccination. I'm a retired teacher as a substitute, yet there's hundreds of substitute teachers who were not allowed religious or medical accommodation opportunity. Regular teachers were and now they've lost their unemployment because they've been fired. They weren't fired.

The point is we have a bifurcated culture here. Wonderful about the arts, violin players, and all the rest and basketball stars, but this is nonsense. We got through the whole pandemic from 2019/2020 without vaccinations. Yes, I got the vaccination, but that's my business. This is wrong. The DOE is going after them and they should not be going after them.

Brian Lehrer: You're talking about the teacher as the substitute and other teachers who got fired for not getting vaccinated, but you know, David, and I don't want to dwell on this policy debate, this call is more about people's personal experiences, but obviously, it's a personal experience if you've lost your job for not getting vaccinated, but a lot of the argument, the athlete and performer exception aside, which is obviously very controversial, it's not just a matter of personal choice, it's a matter of responsibility to the community because vaccination does reduce your risk of transmission to some degree if you're positive, even if you get it well vaccinated.

Also, community vaccination destroys the possibility of the virus or greatly reduces the possibility of the virus to keep spreading at a high rate to the vulnerable people in the community. It's not just a matter of a personal choice. David, I'll let you say one more, anything you want.

David: Fine. Okay, so we all have to suffer while the ballerinas and violinists get their choice and the basketball stars. By the way, you should stay away from the religious argument that is going on. The Ukrainian, I'm Catholic, we are all suffering. We're all praying for peace. You should not even been going there. Brian, have a great day.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you. Keep calling us, and we will be going there in our next segment in just a few minutes. The division in the Eastern Orthodox Church, which includes a whole lot of Russians and a whole lot of Ukrainians, and the church's responsibility and how individual Eastern Orthodox folks are dealing with the war in a spiritual and practical sense. That actually is coming up next. Here is Laura in Washington Heights. Home with COVID, do I see, Laura? Hi, you're on WNYC.

Laura: Right Brain. Yes, this is Laura, home with COVID. Just got diagnosed this morning with a home test. My husband had been home after a PCR and he's doing okay, got the antiviral. We're in our early 60s, so we're being super careful all around. Until this point, we've been free of COVID. Ironically, I just ended my stint at New York City Test & Trace on Friday, so I've been a case investigator and talking to New Yorkers. That program is ending, as you maybe know.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, they're not even doing Test & Trace anymore. Trace is supposed to help people figure out who they've exposed or been exposed to, to help prevent the spread and others. We've gotten to the point where the city isn't even doing that anymore, right?

Laura: Right. I have a couple of minds about that, but just as an anecdotal observer talking to lots of New Yorkers, the truth is, most people we spoke to or I spoke to, they're doing the right thing, they are staying home when they test positive or they start getting a fever, they're doing the right things. All of the things that we are telling people, much of the time, New Yorkers knew what to do, which is amazing. Of course, there are many who didn't and we're helping them out and helping the community.

Brian Lehrer: How do you think in your case, if you know or if you want to say, got it, how do you think you got it with as careful as it sounds like you've been?

Laura: Yes, my husband is the one who I think I got it from. I think he got it by being a commuter on the New York City subway system. He's an infrequent commuter. He doesn't go to the office very often, but he's out and about a bit more. I'm an uptown person all the time these days with the job that I had working from home, which luckily, as you know, because you live in Inwood is a beautiful place to be, but who knows, we don't know.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we don't really know.

Laura: It's a very contagious variant and I don't think people are aware. My husband's doctor said that he's getting such a surge in his office, most people doing home testing, so it's not data-driven-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Right, not necessarily reflected in the testing numbers that are out there. Of course, the way it seems like you got it is the way so many people get it. One person in the household is exposed through public contact in some way, you think maybe on the subways, I'm sure you don't know in your husband's case, it sounds like, but then the transmission takes place at home. It's at-home transmission that's been so huge, which is why the public encounters are the place where public policy is supposed to break the chain. Laura, thank you.

Of course, so many people who've been making a public show about being careful and probably have been careful, are getting it now as they let their guard down a little bit. We talked in multiple segments last week about the Gridiron Club Dinner. Those were Democrats, by and large. Nancy Pelosi and others who let their guard down a little and got COVID. Fortunately, it seems like nobody got seriously ill from that event.

Stephen Colbert announced just yesterday, did you hear that, that he tested positive for COVID yesterday, and he canceled the next week of his shows. He's been pro-vaccine and everything. Didn't get it before as far as I've read about Stephen Colbert, got it now. A lot of people like that around, like the doctor who Laura said is suddenly seeing it a lot again in his practice. Well, I told a seder spread her story, and I think Tish in Westin has one too. Hi, Tish, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Tish: Hi, Brian. How are you today?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?

Tish: I attended a seder last Friday in New Jersey, and it was eight people, just my in-laws, my brother-in-law, and my family, and four people came down with COVID on Monday. We were safe up until that point. We haven't had COVID since it all started, and it happened.

Brian Lehrer: Did you test before the seder? Did you say that one way or another?

Tish: We did not test before the seder because I think everybody let their guard down a bit. I'll be testing now every time I go out to dinner with someone or et cetera.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call, Tish, and I hope everybody's okay there. All right, one more seder spreader story. Michael in the East Village, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi, Brian. It's great to have a chance to speak with you. I've been thinking of calling you ever since I heard your interview with Professor Gonsalves at Yale. Was that Monday?

Brian Lehrer: That was Monday last week, yes. Oh, Monday this week. Yes, Monday this week.

Michael: This week. He said the reasonable precautions that we should take is what we did. I went to an eight-person seder last Friday, and we all tested negative prior to the seder and it still wasn't good enough because one of my cousin's friends got sick the next day. She tested positive on Sunday. I got sick on Sunday. Even though I've had four shots, my second booster was eight days before the seder. I still got hit pretty hard by this and I'm taking the [unintelligible 00:39:00] and I'm doing better but I've missed the entire week from work and I think next week I'll probably maybe be able to do some remote work.

Brian Lehrer: I guess the public health people would say, at very least, the fact that you didn't get it even worse than you did is a reflection of your vaccination status. I hope everybody else in the group is okay too.

Michael: I think that's true. Three people got sick, including me, but the other two were 17 and the younger people tend to have later cases. I'm 57.

Brian Lehrer: Good. Where does this leave you, Michael, in terms of this confusing moment that everybody's in? For you, four times vaccinated it sounds like, and pre-tested before the event and everybody there pretested, and those rapid tests do produce some false negatives in people who are asymptomatic. Where does it leave you taking all the precautions it sounds like we're supposed to take, still getting it. Where does it leave you about how you would behave or recommend that others behave?

Michael: It's very difficult. I'm also a flutist, a professional flutist and so I perform without a mask. I had performed a piece for 12 flutes in early March, we rehearsed and formed and I didn't get sick. I played a concert with the Staten Island Philharmonic earlier this spring, the whole orchestra didn't get sick, but the problem is when you guess wrong and you get this, it's a severe penalty or can be. I really don't know what to do going forward. It's a very serious problem. The difficulty that I have is that there are a lot of people who seem to be saying, well, most people don't die of this anymore and you can avoid hospitalization. Yes, but this is a severe illness-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it sounds like you got socked. All right, Michael, we got to finish on a fun note because I can't resist. Wait, the question is what was the piece for 12 flutes? Because like I love Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint, which is for eight flutes, so what's the piece for 12 flutes?

Michael: This is a piece by Wendy Wolf and, oh gosh, I'm going to have to check the name. It was a New York Flute Club concert. You can check their website for Wednesday. I'm sorry I'm forgetting the name of it but--

Brian Lehrer: That's okay, but remember that--

Michael: I'll just say this, we're performing it again in August at the National Flute Association Convention in Chicago. That may be the first time I fly and that's a whole other question.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, Michael, thank you very and stay safe out there. All right. We're going to end this call-in with a flying story I think from Kate in Irvington, that's Irvington, New York, not Irvington New Jersey in this case, right Kate? Hi.

Kate: Yes. Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. Yes, I flew yesterday and I've taken all precautions and I went down to Savannah with my daughter and we were very happy that the mass mandate was extended and dismayed when we heard it had been lifted and both of us felt like the wheels have come off the bus. We were like in the rare minority of people masking, none of the flight attendants were masked, nobody in the airport. We sort of thought, well, that's the south in Georgia and when we get to LaGuardia, we'll see people masking up, and it wasn't happening there either. I feel like the people who are very tired of masking have been given permission to put those masks in the bin and not comply, so there you go.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Report from the air. Kate, thank you very much. Thanks to all of you for your calls on this. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

 

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