Hello and welcome to the Ostrome Update COVID-19, a podcast on the COVID-19 pandemic with

Dr. Michael Ostrome.

Dr. Ostrome 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. Ostrome 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 Dahl, reporter for CITRAP News, and I'm your host for these conversations.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ostrome Update Podcast.

With COVID-19 cases declining in the United States and around the world, there's an increasing

focus on how we move beyond the acute phase of the pandemic.

While the World Health Organization recently said COVID-19 continues to constitute a public

health emergency of international concern, the agency also said the pandemic is likely

in a transition point to a new phase.

Last week, the Biden administration announced it would end the public health and national

emergencies for COVID-19 on May 11th.

And as we discussed in our last episode, the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Committee has begun

a series of conversations about a possible shift to annual COVID shots.

Is that simply an acknowledgement by public health and government officials that the public

is done with the pandemic?

Or are we truly in a new phase?

That's what we're going to be discussing on this February 9th episode of the podcast,

as we assess the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US and around the world.

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