With canceled plans, restaurants shuttering and talk of school shutdowns, the experience of the Covid pandemic can sometimes feel like two steps forward, one step back. And it’s not helped by changing (and sometimes confusing) guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the lack of key resources like at-home rapid tests, and the misinformation that abounds from Dr. Google.

So in this conversation, Kara Swisher turns to two experts to answer our burning questions about the latest wave: Dr. Ashish Jha is a physician and the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, and Emily Oster is an economist at Brown who has been collecting data on how schools respond to the pandemic.

Jha and Oster answer Kara’s questions on everything from medical misinformation and the Biden administration’s pandemic responses to the costs of rapid testing. They speak in detail about schools and the effects the pandemic has had on the mental health of parents and children. And they discuss what’s needed for the country to prepare for the next variant, whenever it arrives.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more information for all episodes at nytimes.com/sway, and you can find Kara on Twitter @karaswisher.

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