think that that could surely go the opposite way and say even with fewer severe cases per thousand cases, overall, we may have more people hospitalized than we even did with delta. >> so, dr. wen, you made some waves recently when you said here on cnn that cloth masks were, quote, little more than facial decorations. so, in light of omicron, what kind of masks should we all be wearing? and were you surprised by the pushback from your comments? >> well, i was surprised because this is not the first time that i or professor osterholm or really any of us public health experts have been saying that cloth masks are not appropriate for this pandemic. it was -- it's not appropriate for omicron. it was not appropriate for delta, alpha, or any of the previous variants, either, because we are dealing with something that's airborne. we are dealing with a virus that's extremely contagious. at the very beginning of the pandemic, we didn't know about masking. and then, we didn't have enough masks, enough high-quality masks for healthcare workers and so we were trying to ration those. but then, pretty quickly, we