Hello and welcome to the Oster Home Update, COVID-19, a weekly podcast on the COVID-19

pandemic with Dr. Michael Oster Home. Dr. Oster Home is an internationally recognized

medical detective and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

or CITRAP at the University of Minnesota. In this podcast, Dr. Oster Home will draw on

more than 45 years of experience investigating infectious disease outbreaks to provide

straight talk on the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm Chris Doll, reporter for CITRAP News. I'm

your host for these conversations.

It's been another busy week, Mike, and we have a lot to get to on this week's episode of the

Oster Home Update, including a look at the muddled pandemic picture in the United States.

But before we get started, is there someone you'd like to dedicate this episode to?

Thank you, Chris. It's going to be with you again. Yes, when we think about the frontline

healthcare workers, we often talk about the doctors and nurses, particularly those in intensive care,

who are incredible heroes in this entire war against this virus. And we can never not remember

day after day all the heroic things they do. But I think sometimes the professionals, myself included,

forget about those support staff that don't necessarily fit into what is often seen as

the professional staff as such. And that includes, I think, today in intensive care, the area of

Ortalese and Nurses Aids, who anybody who knows what goes on inside a hospital or a long-term

care facility know that they are often the backbone of every response that occurs. They're the

ones that are there in some very tough jobs. And so today, I dedicate this to all the Ortalese,

Nurses Aids, and the staff who provide the kind of care that doesn't often get captured when we

talk about the heroic doctors and nurses who are in our facility. So today, this one's for you.

So over the past week, there's been a rising concern over the surge of COVID-19 cases in states

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