Confused about how to handle COVID this fall and winter? Wondering how to think about masks, boosters, and reducing your risk of getting sick?On this episode of Beyond the Prescription, Dr. McBride talks with Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, who became one of the most prominent public health experts in the country during the pandemic. Dr. Gandhi is a Harvard-trained physician, expert in infectious diseases, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is the director of the UCSF’s AIDS Research Center and the medical director of the San Francisco General Hospital HIV Clinic. Dr. Gandhi’s career centers on the principle of harm reduction, born out of her decades-long work in HIV. Harm reduction is the belief that public health policies should consider not only the pathogen (i.e., HIV or COVID) but also people’s basic needs for social connection, intimacy, and agency—and that public health’s job isn’t to shame, stigmatize, or even to eliminate risk (that’s impossible) but rather to arm people with information and tools to mitigate the inevitable risks we face.Her new book, Endemic: A Post-Pandemic playbook, published in July 2023, aims to reckon with the country's present condition: comprehending and living with a new respiratory disease and how to face the coming variants and next pandemic with reason, science, courage and compassion.Listen to hear Drs. Gandhi and McBride discuss where we have been, where we find ourselves now, and how we ought to manage the virus this season, and in the coming years.Join Dr. McBride every Monday for a new episode of Beyond the Prescription.You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on her Substack at https://lucymcbride.substack.com/podcast. You can sign up for her free weekly newsletter at lucymcbride.substack.com/welcome.Please be sure to like, rate, and review the show! Get full access to Are You Okay? at lucymcbride.substack.com/subscribe