As COVID-19 surges in NEO, public health experts discuss new vaccine | Sound of Ideas

[Music] it's the sound of ideas from idre public media I'm Jenny Hamill thanks so much for joining us today for the 12th week in a row covid-19 cases are on the rise in Ohio according to the Ohio Department of Health there are nearly 4 million reported cases Statewide up to 8,000 cases just this past week and there are more than 280,000 of those exposed to covid they reside here in kyoka County the US Food and Drug Administration recently improved an updated covid-19 vaccine for everyone 6 months old and older the new vaccine will protect against the circulating covid variant and Americans can receive it now this hour will be joined by a Cleveland Clinic physician and a kayoga County Public Health official who will talk about the recent surge of covid-19 and if people are being hit hard by the virus or not we're also going to talk about the new covid-19 vaccine and how it protects you and your loved ones from not only covid but the flu RSV and other respiratory diseases that you may encounter this fall joining me in studio is Dr Pros Ganesh kyoga County Board of Health medical director Dr Ganesh thanks so much for being here and Welcome to our new studio thank you thank you for having me of course joining us by phone is Dr Donald Dumford infectious disease specialist at Cleveland Clinic akan General Dr Dumford thank you so much for calling in thanks so much for having me Johnny and if you have any questions about the new covid vaccine the latest Spike of the virus or you have any thoughts please give us a call that's 866578 93 you can email us at s SOI ideast stream.org or you can tweet us we're at sound of ideas now Dr Dumford I'll start with you what do you think is causing the covid-19 search we're seeing this summer well I think it's a a combination of several different things uh the the first one we know of is that so far during the the co pandemic and and now I guess now the CO's endemic we should really say co co being emic now um is that we've seen about every six months we see a surge in cases um this probably correlates with um waning uh immunity because we know that typically anti body levels start to fall off about 3 to four months after natural infection or after uh vaccination and I think too we have to think about the fact that the time of year that we see people having surges or we see these surges is in those times where we might be clustering together a little bit more or or you know getting together a little bit more traveling you think about winter we tend to uh especially up here in Northeast Ohio have pretty uh cold climates so we're huddled together indoors uh over the summer you know especially in the South we get pretty hot conditions people might be clustered together in the air conditioning and also the summer is a time when people are traveling uh so there's uh the potential for more exposure to to uh you know a a greater number of people at that time and and Dr dumper to follow up on that I know that listeners might be thinking wait I got the vaccine why am I getting covid again so why don't you clarify uh the role that the vaccine can play or not in protecting against newer strains sure so essentially you know when we first started off thinking about Co and one of the things we talked about was was herd immunity I think you know right now the way that we've been seeing uh less severe cases of Co is essentially there's some amount of herd immunity among the population now whether it's because people have been vaccinated uh or people have have got infected uh now with the with covid and along with the other Corona viruses you know our immunity tends to wne and then also as we've seen and everybody's been talking about as we have these these variants or mutations now you know all viruses mutate it just seems like Co is particularly mutagenic uh and so we've been seeing new strains fairly rapidly which means that even as your immunity is weakening that that means that the prior immunity you have might or probably isn't protecting you quite as well against those new variants coming because your antibodies don't quite lock in with the protein structure of the the virus that's circulating at the time so that's why we see the people you know are continuing to get covid uh repeatedly is just that they're having their body is having to deal with these new strains uh now we know that um the the vaccine that has just been approved the two forms the MRNA vaccine that has been approved uh have very good um or we think are going to have very good protection for the current circulating strain um so I think that we're going to see that the vaccine coming up is going to reduce um the chance of getting covid and then uh also importantly is that even if you get Co you're going to have a very blunted um case of covid uh be because of the vaccine so Dr Ganesh I wonder how seriously should we all collectively be taking this recent surge in covid cases I think there's this feeling of in some respects um the worst is over and we're kind of back to normal and so when you hear about spikes and and and bigger numbers than than in months previous um it's concerning but what does that actually look like um for public health officials I mean for us we are looking closely at at number of hospitalizations deaths cases I mean everything's being under reported because a lot of people do have home tests available at home and so we might not get all the cases reported to us but we are watching Wastewater um and and and we've seen steady levels so far in our Northeast Ohio uh Wastewater uh but we are closely monitoring all those uh indicators um I think with going back to school families are especially concerned because that's where we see a lot of infections from from kids RSV covid uh flu all of these are going to be coming up in the next few months so timing of getting vaccines are going to be important so we're we're going to be doing a lot of Education uh focusing on high-risk communities like nursing homes sure so we are usually in touch with a lot of nursing homes making sure that if they are having an outbreak we can help guide them through that and isolate and quarantine as needed um we don't have as many resources as we did previously during the emergency since that's been recalled since May of last year um so we don't have the funding available for a lot of the activities that we had previously like our community pop-up clinics that we used to vaccinate a lot of people for and give a lot of incentives for as well sure which is controversial but yeah let me ask you this are you seeing fatalities uh how how bad is the virus uh presenting for certain people you were talking about vulnerable populations like the elderly uh is is covid still a potential killer Yes I I think uh in the last year in in 2024 we've had around 20 25 deaths already associated with covid just in our region um I in the last few weeks we have not seen any deaths uh but we are given updates on the number of deaths each week by the County Medical Examiner office um so it is something we still need to take seriously and prevent especially those that are high risk of getting uh serious infection yeah and Dr Dumford I love your take on this as well uh when you kind of see the picture of how we live with covid now and you talk about these spikes and the fact that maybe even more people are going to are going to get it what are your greatest concerns about covid and who could be threaten the most by getting the virus so I think um you know Co along with other the respiratory viruses you know the average person is probably going to do okay with an infection um but I always like to make sure everybody keeps in mind that those those people are are going to be prone to severe infection and and you know hospitalization and death are those with the extremes of age so our elderly population our babies uh those with you know an immun compromising condition whether it's due to uh some natural derangement of the immune system or it's due to the the ever increasing number of meds that we use to blunt the immune system for you know autoimmune diseases for cancers uh those that are obese those that uh have poorly controlled diabetes uh and and also those with uh heart dis disease and lung disease um that those are all the populations that are be more prone to infection so I think you know I recommend covid vaccine and flu vaccine for for you know everybody you know Co right now is is recommended for uh over the age of six months um I recommend it for you know anybody who's eligible to get it but I especially say that if you are in one of those atrisk groups uh or if you are close to somebody that's in one of those at risk groups it is it is doubly important for you to get vaccinated so I'm curious Dr Ganesh why you know as Dr Dumford said 6 months and up is kind of the the um general advice why is it more particularly important to give it to babies or toddlers I mean kids are still developing their own immune systems at 6 months of Age and and up to a year a lot of them are depending on um the immunity around their family unit um if they're breastfeeding a lot of times is coming from mom um so 6 months and older we when we can give vaccine at that age we recommend it because they don't really have other immune system uh protection that normal like adults would have okay and then I want to ask actually both of you this question you know since kind of the pandemic and in the Years following um there's been a lot of studies and data about both the virus and the vaccines and there's been a lot of misconceptions about the vaccine so what I'd love to hear from both of our professionals on the segment is are there any downsides to the vaccines is there any give and take with making that choice or do you think it's just a no-brainer to get the vaccine I'll start with you Dr Kesh I mean it's it's it's become very controversial and I and when I see my patients and talk about it at times it is it can be confrontational I I try to give them the best advice I have um there are a lot of misconceptions um because of the misinformation and disinformation that has been spread out there um but I think as a primary care physician as well just having that relationship with my patients I'm able to dispel some of those sure and and that close relationship with your PCP or or or provider uh you can help dispel some of those things and I've been successful in creating uh a space where they can openly discuss that and eventually down the line get the vaccine but I think it is something I recommend to all my patients and Dr Dumford how is your dialogue with potential patients or the general public when it comes to concerns about the vaccine or information they're getting out there well you know I always uh you know I'd say with my patients really with you know anything that I I I do with them you know I I I tell them the risks I tell them the benefits and I let them know you know I'm I'm here to try and guide you through this I'm going to tell you what I would uh you know do for myself or do for a family member um and you know take that information and what you do you know with that is is up to you so um but we talk you know when I talk with patients and we talk about those those concerns those misconceptions about vaccine safety you know I I kind of go through the data of how we know that you know even if it doesn't prevent all infections it does uh significantly reduced your risk of getting infected uh we know it definitely um substantially red rces the risk of of Hospital hospitalization death uh there's data out there that um shows that it reduces the risk of long covid uh and then you know the the things where we're worried about um you know the the side effects you know I I I remind people that no matter what you're you're picking up from your pharmacy even if it's over the- counter medication there's side effects with with anything we we give to people and there's always potential for side effects but I let them know that we we know that the covid vaccines are very safe um you know taking one example like the the risk of myocarditis we heard about um especially in the younger population uh we know that you're much more likely to get myocarditis from covid infection rather than than the vaccine um so you know I kind of remind them of that that even if there is that concern out there for those types of side effects you're still more likely to get get problems from the the infection itself uh rather from from our preventive efforts Bob wrote in he's listening to the show now and asked how soon will the novax vaccine be available and is it worth waiting for I I think we're still waiting I mean we don't even have NOAA in some of our clinics anymore um most of the MRNA vaccines are the ones that we've been using uh we're still waiting for the FDA to approve this next version of it but because it's commercial now a lot of clinics have to purchase this the VAC and and a lot of times they're opting for the more popular ones explain the difference for those who don't know yeah so um madna and fizer are are typical um sure uh our newer uh uh I guess new technology vaccines they've been around for some time but this is the first time they've been rapidly introduced into uh public like this so sure um and that's fizer and madna and then we have our novavax which is our typ IAL um I I want to say adant uh type maybe Dr Dumford can correct me um but it's it's it's not as it usually it hasn't been very popular uh throughout the pandemic and we haven't used it as nearly as much um and because it's become commercial we haven't been using it nearly as much because it hasn't been very popular to store and stock yeah Dr Dunford do you want to add to that sure I I think just you know the way I explain things to my patients when we're talking about the different vaccines between like you know mRNA and then and then the novaa you know being an agent vaccine is essentially that the MRNA vaccines take a small piece of genetic material and then it gets injected and then it's the genetic material for that Spike protein and then it creates your body then takes that genetic material makes the spike protein and then your body starts to get antibodies to it um whereas the novax um actually just injects the protein itself and then your body responds um you know kind of the the benefit I think it seems like the you know theoretically the MRNA probably has a little more robust uh um response um but we know that that both forms have been effective as far as and similarly effective in in clinical trials as far as uh how they've combed Co and when should people who are going to get the vaccine when should they be getting it uh I think that's a great question I uh I think it depends on what you're seeing locally sure um locally like if we're seeing that Surge and you're at high risk of being around that I think getting it as soon as possible but if you are looking at protecting yourself more during the winter months when when a lot of we're going to see a winter surge as well with RSV and flu possibly as well uh waiting till maybe mid October uh because we do see like our previous vaccine last year and and the ones before that that we see good Effectiveness around 3 months to 6 months uh where it's lasting okay so you brought that up I want to ask about what this flu season and and your perspective might look like Dr Dumford when it comes to flu and RSV um how are public health professionals kind of anticipating this season you know I think right now um with the flu I think it's going to be probably like what our our average you know I'm thinking it's going to be like what our average flu season looks like uh you know when you think about it as far as the flu you're typically thinking that there's probably about like you know 35 million infections uh throughout the US um and you know a good number of hospitalizations so I think we're going to be kind of kind of average as far as the flu um RSV I don't necessarily have a prognostication yet um I'm hoping it's not as bad as last year cuz I know last year was particularly bad for for RSV among our Pediatric and otherly population and uh Dr Ganesh we are running out of time but I want to ask when it comes to flu and RSV are there Protocols are there ways that people should be protecting themselves especially as you said you know it's going to get cold we're all going to be inside and uh and uh getting together socially that way I mean I think prevention is is key so immunizations uh first hygiene washing hands uh cleaning uh common surfaces um making sure that if you are ill and you are having uh um symptoms making sure you're protecting yourself uh masking distancing the same thing we've heard before testing the the federal government is going to be shipping out uh tests in the next month home tests uh so the more you know the better you can protect others that are around you and and I think also keeping close monitor of what's happening in your local community what's happening in your uh kids classrooms for example um can help guide uh how uh cautious you are and making sure that you're preventing transmission that's all the time we have for today so I appreciate our guests uh coming into Studio Dr prosh Ganesh with the kyoga County Board of Health medical director and Dr Donald Dumford who called in infectious disease specialist at Cleveland Clinic akan General thanks to both of you I'm sure you're very busy and I appreciate you taking the time to inform me and our listeners thank you yeah thanks foring here of course time now for a quick break but we're going to continue on with the subject have you or people you know felt you've had lasting symptoms of long covid we're going to talk to the OSU researchers looking into this long covid and what can be done about it this is the sound of ideas I'm Jenny haml we'll be right back [Music] [Music] [Music] at 9:26 you're tuned to the sound of ideas right here on your NPR station wksu ideas stream public media support for our programming today is provided by you our listener members and bye Suma Health the Suma Health Neuroscience Institute offers diagnostic screening and treatments for neurological and spine disorders including Strokes Ms Sleep disorders and more more information is available at Suma health.org brain noek 240 Ohio communities working together to buy electricity and natural gas in bulk helping to lower utility bills details at no.org or noack's 247 customer care center at 855-667-4705 on wksu upgrade from listener to member by visiting ideast stream.org donate today you're with the sound of ideas from ideas public media I'm Jenny Hamill thanks for being with us this hour since the start of the covid-19 pandemic there have been significant strides in understanding how the virus works and how to treat and contain it but one phenomena continues to be a and that's long covid according to the Centers for Disease Control one out of 13 adults in the US have long covid symptoms so what exactly does that mean long Co can affect individuals of all ages and present through various unique symptoms the most common though include fatigue brain fog shortness of breath headaches and body aches and these symptoms can last years at the Ohio State University a team of researchers is working to develop effective treatments and better understanding of the long-term consequences of the pandemic they recently received a $15 million Federal Grant from the NIH to Fund Solutions to long covid and today we're going to speak about this project and about the progress so far joining me by phone for this discussion is Dr Amal Amir professor of microbial infection and Immunity at the Ohio State University and the Grant's contact principal investigator Dr thanks so much for joining us well thank you for having me Jenny and if any of you in our audience would like to join the conversation or have a question for Dr Amir about long covid you can call 866578 903 you can email us at SOI ideast stream.org or you can tweet us we are at sound of ideas Dr air this topic hits CL hits close to home for you because you actually experien experienced long Co what shape did that take for you so for me I unfortunately I got covid three times and in the after the second time I suffered from brain fog and it was the most horrifying experience of my life wow so I tend to travel around the world for many reasons I've been to many continents and I got sick in many other places but that brain fog was something I never experienced before and it was very scary for me because my job depends on my brain sure our job whether we're teaching or doing research is a brain job and all of a sudden I couldn't even type uh when my students were sharing their information or their progress with me I couldn't follow I'm reading a paper as soon as I finish one sentence I can't understand you know what I just read and I keep repeating the reading so it it was really shocking now I I I could I didn't know what to do and how to handle that because there is still no treatment and I was among the lucky people the very few lucky people who I recovered gradually and I'm back to work and I I gained my ability to think again but I feel feel so um worried about those who are not that lucky and and are suffering for extended periods of time and they do not know what's going to happen to them right and and and your your uh experience sounds really horrible I mean that must be so scary especially as you said we all use our brains but especially in your line of work uh it is Paramount to your job performance to to have a clear mind and to use your brain uh I wonder how does long covid manifest differently for different people uh uh what's a worst case scenario I've certainly read articles in the past of people losing jobs not being able to work um just debilitating symptoms um but then I also wonder if there's people who have long Co who don't even know so um can you kind of uh explain to me there how it can vary in people so I'll tell you my prospective so when I had the long Co with the brain fog like if I'm sitting spending my day watching TV and flipping channels I will not realize that there is something wrong right it's only when I try to read something to comprehend something trying to focus so if you are retired and maybe you're not reading and you're not doing any brain activities you may not even know however there are other symptoms like severe fatigue so any age any circumstances you would know you have that the the other thing is that it can be extreme there are reports of people having paranoid delusions and being hospitalized and there are people who may have very subtle symptoms they feel tired one day but not the other and they don't even know it's long covid and they Tred to keep working now after my the news was published in Columbus Dispatch I was contacted by so many patients and many of them lost their job lost their lives and and it was really heartbreaking and we have several covid clinics here at Ohio State and I urge everybody to to try to get in touch with the long covid clinics because they will do whatever they can to to help out at least to make them understand what they're going through okay so Dr Amir you've got this $15 million Federal Grant from the NIH substantive and essentially will you tell us what the goal is is of this particular project and what you're hoping to find out yeah so this project is focused on what the SARS scov 2 the virus can do to your organs so we're not just looking at the brain we're looking at the lung and we're collaborating with several people and I'm not alone on the grand I have great leaders I have Dr Estel cor boyaka Dr Prosper boaka Jang and and Z Zen they are all the expert tender Fields here at Ohio State and what we're trying to accomplish here is several things first try to find a biomarker like if this patient or this model have certain uh expression of signature molecules can we predict the person who will get long Co and the one who will not get it because we don't have that yet uh nobody can tell a patient if they're going to get long covid or not the second thing we're trying to accomplish here is to understand so in order to achieve anything in science you have to understand what is the virus doing in the lung what is the virus doing in the immune system what is happening in the brain now there are several reports about patients what they have and the biology in the lung very fewer reports about the pathology in the brain and it's understandable so we're trying to understand what's happening in these conditions and the reason we need to understand that is that when you understand what's happening then you can find a drug Target you can find a marker that tells you okay this patient is going to suffer from this type of long Co that going to suffer from fatigue or heart problem or brain problem or lung problems and many people developed allergies they didn't have allergies all their lives so let me nobody can understand yes go let me ask you this because I know there has been some I would say progress made in the understanding of as you said a potential I guess biomarker and one is about uh an OSU study that was recently published that found that mice infected with covid-19 um reacted differently to the disease depending on if they had a certain enzyme producing molecule and it's called caspas 11 yes so this is our study and this is the studies that started all of that so during the pandemic we my lab is focused on innate immunity which is the immune system the first encounter in your body when you face any foreign particle or a pathogen that comes into your body is the innate immune system sure and we have a lot of mice that are missing different um players in the innate immune system system and from our work on Casp 11 with bacterial infection and with another disease in the brain which is Alzheimer disease as soon as we start reading about covid and what's going on we predicted so we had this hypothesis already because we knew the function of caspace 11 that if caspace 11 is not there the mouse will do better and this is exactly what happened we collaborated with a virologist here at Ohio State uh Jacob Beyond and we had a lot of help from other investigators like uh Stephanie Sao and jenang Lee and from our chair uh Jin alss and we were able to show and we published this paper that if the mouse does not have this molecule the lung is protected so the the normal mice will have severe inflammation and tissue destruction the mouse that doesn't have caspis 11 the lung tissue is as if they never saw an infection H then we start looking yeah yeah it was incredible and then we start looking at the brain now the normal Mouse will lose many molecules that are needed for neurological function of the brain for the nerve the transmission of nerve signals in the brain that caspace 11 knockout Mouse the brain was normal so with that we decided to go further and further because if this is the case then if you target caspace 11 you may have a an amazing drug Target that can prevent be a treatment a lot of exactly well let me treatment yes let me ask you this Dr Amir um we only have a limited time with you so I want to make sure I get to some important questions uh the the research showing long covid affecting children so in my study I'm not I'm not using that model so in my study I'm focused more on the uh adult the older mice and the long Co prospective my study did not include the younger M or has there been any news or or information regarding that I'm sure you're aware of kind of what the general research has been absolutely but the problem with long Co is that it's so vague even as an adult when the doctor asked you how you feel you it's very hard to to describe when I was trying to describe the brain fog it's very hard to describe so if you have a child you know that's something wrong you know they cannot function well they know they're always tired and want to skip school but the child cannot describe exactly how they're feeling and what's wrong with them so we anticipate it's going to be at in any age unfortunately and and and uh what would you say to people who wonder I have some symptoms I can't really put a nail on it but um you know are there bits of advice that you have for those who suspect they might have long Co and what they should do about it so my advice try to connect with your physician because unfortunately on the social media there is a lot of ideas and and denial sometimes and also people who give themselves the right to to you know suggest some treatment or some Behavior I suggest to not listen to that you have to contact your physician because some of them can be very serious your tiredness can be related to the heart and this is you know need to be taken care of your brain fog needs to be managed in a in a certain way so please do not doubt if you have any symptom that may be related to Long Co please contact your physician and Ohio State has several long Co clinics so please try to contact them and then you will know and you will understand right and so there are ways for people to actually get a diagnosis of of of a doctor saying this looks like long covid absolutely yes absolutely now let me ask you this it must be difficult to to collect data on covid Long covid cases um because you know it's not clear if someone has it it's not like they have to go in and take a test and say oh I have long covid so how do you know how it's how this has has impacted Ohio and and our region so you are absolutely right in this statement which is very hard to to collect samples and to stratify the patients because you have this group who just feels tired they can get up in the morning and then you have a group who are fine and then feels tired just two days a week and then you have the group who completely devastated you have a group who have neurological symptoms that are extreme and you have the group who have long covid just manifested in the brain then you have another group who have allergies just they were never allergic to anything so we tried that a study like that will need a huge number of of human samples and frankly I would like to thank every person who believes in research and donate their blood samples and tried to help and I was contacted by many more and that will help us all at the end to try to understand such a a disease that's so complicated Dr Amir you have one minute for this answer but I wonder what is next in your research and what are you hoping to find so we hope to find the key Pathways the key molecules that affect the lung affect the brain affect the innate immune system and the Adaptive immune system and once we find how caspace 11 can regulate all that I'm already working with collaborators how to do a drug Target how to Target this molecule and we go from there cpay 11 I learned so much Dr Amal air professor of microbial infection and Immunity at the Ohio State University thanks so much for your time and expertise and for joining us thank you for having me time now for a quick break next we're going to talk about a book series about a Small Town Police Chief who had an Amish upbringing but leaves the religion in her teens Anna Huntsman interviews author Linda Castillo this is the sound of ideas I'm Jenny Hamill we'll be right [Music] back at 943 you're tuned to the sound of ideas right here on wksu ideas stream public media support for our programming comes from Cleveland hearing and speech center providing speech language literacy hearing and Death Services for over 100 years locations in Linhurst West Lake Broadview Heights and now open in Midtown Cleveland more information at chs.org country star Laney Wilson has skyrocketed to Fame in the last few years she went from playing bars and clubs to stadiums and now NPR's tiny desk I will tell you I write what I know and I write what I live and right now I am living my life on the road hear her reflect on her career and music on all things considered from NPR news you can join us later today at four for all things consider with your Local Host amander AB benitz right here on wksu IDE stream public media it's the sound of ideas from ideas public media I'm Jenny Hamill thanks so much for spending this hour with us Holmes County about 50 minutes west of Canton is home to one of the largest Amish communities in the country it's also the setting of an awardwinning mystery series called the Kate Burkholder series by author Linda Castillo the series focuses on Kate Burkholder a police chief in the fictional town of painters Mill who grew up Amish but left the faith when she became an adult in the latest book in the series The Burning Burk holder's investigation into a shocking murder takes her deep into a dark and little known chapter of Amish history sounds so interesting idea stream public media's Anna Huntsman a longtime fan of the series recently interviewed Castillo about the books released this summer as well as her time spent in Northeast Ohio for research Linda Castillo welcome to the sound of ideas thank you so much Anna I'm very very happy to be here I wanted to ask you first off just for any of our listeners who might not be familiar with the series what inspired you to start writing a book about a local police chief in an Amish settlement I actually began my career writing romantic suspense and I wrote several romantic suspense novels for harleyquinn actually and I wrote several suspense novels also for brookley and the procedure is that generally um you know the author will complete a book they turn it into their editor and then the editor you know does will ask for revisions or suggestions and one of the themes that I kept hearing from uh both of my editors at Harley Quinn and Burke uh was that I needed to focus on the relationship between the hero and the heroine and they were basically telling me I needed to stop killing people and you know that was when I realized that my strength really lies with mystery I really wanted to write a mystery novel and so at that point um I sort of put my career on hold I changed gears and I wrote the first book in the series Sworn to Silence really on spec and um I knew that in order for that to be a breakout novel that it was really going to have to be something special and uh I about that time I took a happen stance trip to Ohio with my sister and brother-in-law uh Little Town Frederick uh Frederick Town which is northeast of Columbus and uh we were visiting family it's like 10 below zero there's you know a foot of snow on the ground we're saying our goodbyes and I'm standing in the yard and look over I hear the clip clop of shod hubs and there was an Amish buggy coming down the road and that was the moment that I realized that if I were to take this High concept mystery thriller that I had been working on for several months at that point and set it among the Amish and really be able to give readers a glimpse into the Amish culture that it would be something special and here you are today now 16 books into the series correct yeah I know I can't believe it yeah uh and you visit the area of Holmes County and and this settlement kind of expands into Wayne and tuskar counties you visit fairly frequently to do research right you know I really do I I actually do I'm originally from Ohio the western part of the state Dark County and every year um you know I go on book tour always to homes County uh Cleveland area this year I was supposed to hit Cincinnati of course I had to cancel and I always tried combine events with research because um you know even after all of these books I'm still learning things about the Amish and so I just I just love visiting too I mean that's a perfect segue because I want to talk about the most recent book The Burning uh specifically about kind of the research behind that because there's really a deep dive into Amish and anabaptist history in this novel so um this is a slight spoiler although not so much because the book is called The Burning but the victim in this case is burned at the stake and so there's this as I mentioned Deep dive into the history of martyrdom in anabaptist culture so um could you talk a little bit about that and kind of what inspired that idea and how you researched it one of the things that I always strive to do and I think every author who is writing a long running series is you really want to be able to keep the books fresh and that means sometimes taking a new direction or exploring different a different you know Avenues with the book and this book I really wanted to delve into the culture of the anabaptists and of course the anabaptist that's the Amish the hites and the menites and one of the things that I've always been sort of interested in is uh the the book The the big Tome U martyr's mirror which is you know was written in the 1600s and something like 1,00 pages long a lot of Amish I would have to say most Amish keep that in their in their homes and it's basically a collection of stories of uh Martyrs uh anabaptists who were killed in you know because of their religion and I took some of the really interesting elements of that history and I sort of took a little bit of literary license uh with that and it it just made for such a fantastic story I just loved it how did you go about researching that actually at the do Ohio library um I met uh one of the Librarians there introduced me to an Amish gentleman and it just so happened that he was the curator of the Amish men andite Heritage Center and after the event um at the library we went to the uh to the Heritage Center and it was it was just such an amazing thing to see uh the mural the round mural that's there and he sort of took me through anabaptist history and it was I was just absolutely fascinated and and a little odd too uh because I think most people don't know you know how old this culture is and how much you know they went through just to be able to worship freely yeah um I've gotten to go there as well as part of my reporting um I've done a few stories over the years in that Amish settlement and I remember being the same way I had never known some of the origins and those you know things in the history so um when that was mentioned in the book I was like hey I've been there yeah yeah it's a great place yeah so as you're doing your your research um how do you go about you know finding that balance of wanting to be you know accurate and obviously respectful to the culture but you're also writing a murder mystery yeah you know one of the things that I decided early on when I started the series was I wanted to depict the Amish um uh honestly and do it in a correctly and honestly and that means not not glorifying or you know not denigrating or anything like that I wanted my research to be correct and that is a difficult task because much of of that you know much of the history much of the tradition is not written down and one of my librarian friends um in Ohio U actually do Ohio uh introduced me to a couple of different Amish families and I was lucky enough to have dinner um uh got to visit uh it was a dairy farm which was very very interesting and uh I have horses here in Texas I have sort of an interesting story uh we went to visit uh one of the Amish families we basically just had coffee and cookies out on on the deck and I wanted to see the uh the horse I wanted to see his horse so we walked out there and he harnessed uh the horse and uh uh we went for a buggy ride and I you know must have had um you know a big grin on my face because he he finally asked me if I would like to drive the buggy and I said yes I would I would love to and it just it was just one of those fun spontaneous and it it was also a huge learning experience for me that's wonderful I'm curious I've always wondered this what sort of feedback have you gotten from Amish folks that you might meet at your book tours or do you ever even get pushed back to your series or has it been mostly positive you know I I have a good story about that it was what it was actually my very F first book tour and I was very very nervous and I walk into the library and the library director says well when you finish your Spiel that Amish dude wants to wants to speak with you and I'm thinking to myself oh no he's going to you know uh tell me that I got some research wrong or that my language was too um you know course or something like that so I did my Spiel and uh at the end went and talked to the gentleman he just wanted to tell me that he loved the book he was very kind uh and and it just turned out to be a great conversation um on the other side um I received a letter from an Hest gentleman by the name of Levi from Wisconsin actually and he had read the third book in the series breaking silence and he said that he was so offended by the book that he burned it and I was like well you know you could have at least donated it to a library or something uh but really most of the most of the feedback that I get from the Amish is positive you know a lot of them um offer to help you know I can help you if you ever need information on you know on this this or this I you know let me know as you do your research uh in this area Through The Years um do you have any favorite spots in Holmes County or anywhere in that region I always notice some there's different restaurants sometimes mentioned in the book that are in real life so I just didn't know if you had any favorites down there you know I've been to dinner mean of course D Dutchman um and you know the names of some of the places are eluding me at the moment um but it's always just a treat and usually um you know usually when I go to restaurants and and so forth I'm with uh Librarians and they always you know always know the best places to go usually it's a little hole in the wall and uh always always makes for a good time and good food what can we expect next I know you can't say any spoilers but do you have other um books on the horizon what's next for Kate Burkholder you know know I'm actually working on the next book in this series U it's shaping up I'm probably just maybe I don't know maybe a little over a hundred pages into the book and uh it's I'm you know it's like once I sort of get going on the book I hit my stride and then it just sort of flies and that's when I really find my feet I'm just about to find my feet on this book I do have a title uh that ties and nicely the title and you are actually the first that I'm telling is Rage o yes all right wow you heard it here first on ideas through public media rage wow I'm already intrigued yes well thank you so much Linda Castillo for your time today this has been wonderful thank you Anna I really appreciate it thank you I love that with a book interview uh ideas from public media is Anna Huntsman is still breaking news that new book rage we are excited about that was Anna Huntsman in conversation with author Linda Castillo about the burning which is out now it seems really interesting now to get the last word on today's topic send an email toi ideast stream.org we're on Twitter now X sound of ideas you can follow me at Jenny hore or on Instagram at Jenny haml ideas stream tomorrow on the sound of ideas we're going to talk to IDs room's criminal justice reporter Matt Richmond about the lawsuits involving the city of Cleveland and two of the city's police oversight authorities and we're going to talk to the Boys and Girls Club of Northeast Ohio about the recent announcement it would have to close many of its after school programs in the region and now there's organizations that are stepping up to help but there is uh still more work to be done so that's the conversation tomorrow of course if you miss any portion of the program you can find us online or listen to the sound of ideas podcast wherever you get your podcast you can stream prum you can also hear a rebroadcast of this show tonight at 9 on 897 wksu and I'd like to add that this is the first day that the sound of ideas is airing from the Smith Studio it's something we've been working on uh we are very excited uh I've got to say the studio looks beautiful and uh if you are watching us on the Ohio Channel and our live webstream you can check out our new digs you can also see the video when we upload it to Today's Show page which is ideast stream.org SOI so from the Smith Studio I'm Jenny Hamill thanks so much for listening and maybe watching and I'll speak with you again tomorrow [Music] [Music] the sound of ideas is produced by Rachel Roode Lee bar and Drew Maus Chris Dudley and Samson able provide technical assistance Jay nuster is at the 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