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.

The United States keeps setting single-day records for coronavirus cases this week,

with approximately 60,000 new cases reported on Tuesday, followed by 59,000 on Wednesday,

bringing the total number of cases since the pandemic began in the US to over 3 million.

And in hard hit states like Texas, Arizona, and Florida, hospitalizations are on the rise.

ICU's are filling up, and more people are dying. The surge in infections is causing many states

to pause their plans for reopening. Restaurants and bars are closing again, and public health officials

are once again urging people to stay at home as much as possible. The weather may be different,

but it feels like the country is back where it was in March and April. How we got here,

what we can do about it, will be the focus of this week's episode of the Oster Home Update.

We'll also discuss the debate over how the coronavirus is transmitted. But before we get started,

Mike, who are you dedicating this episode of the podcast to?

Well, first of all, thank you, Chris, for another podcast opportunity here.

Let me also just welcome all of our listeners, particularly any new listeners, and I just want to thank

those who have been with us for some time as well as the new listeners. For spending time with us,

I know that you have many opportunities to get your information from a lot of different sources.

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