Hello and welcome to the Osterholm update, a podcast on COVID-19 and other infectious diseases with Dr Michael Osterholm.

Dr Ostrom is an internationally recognized medical detective and director of the Center for

Infectious Disease Research and Policy or or Sidrapp at the University of Minnesota.

In this podcast, Dr. Ostrom draws on nearly 50 years of experience investigating

infectious disease outbreaks to provide straight talk on the latest infectious disease

and public health threats.

I'm Chris Dahl, reporter for Sidrapp News,

and I'm your host for these conversations.

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

Over the last few episodes of the podcast,

we've been discussing the changes recently made by the California Department of Public Health to the state's COVID isolation guidelines.

Now, according to reporting by the Washington Post,

the Centers for Disease Control Prevention is also looking at loosening its COVID isolation recommendations

to align them with guidance on how to avoid transmitting flu and respiratory sensicial virus.

Now, none of this is official and any changes would need to get sign off from the White House.

But still, the news has sparked strong reaction.

Loosening COVID isolation guidelines, quote, sweeps this serious illness under the rug, unquote,

a Harvard Medical School instructor and member of the People

CDC, told the post.

On this February 22nd episode of the podcast, we're going to discuss the potential changes to the

CDC's COVID isolation guidelines after we examine the latest COVID-19 data from the United States

and other parts of the world.

...