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 August 20th, and as the COVID-19 summer enters its final phase,

Americans are making the most of the time they can spend that door as and preparing for an

uncertain fall. College and K-12 students are in some parts of the country returning to

in-person learning, while others are continuing with the distance learning that began in the

spring. The surge of coronavirus infections that the country has seen for much of the summer

appears to be slowing, but who knows for how long. The uncertain state of the pandemic in

the US and the rest of the world is what we'll be discussing on this episode of the Oster Home

Update, along with the situation in US schools and colleges as the school year begins. We'll

also dive into Dr. Oster Home's concerns about what he calls message chaos. But first, as

always, we'll start with the dedication. Mike, who gets the honors this week?

Well, first of all, thanks, Chris. It's good to be with you again, and I just want to thank

everyone who participated in the live event last week to say that those little nerve-wracking

it was. It's funny, you know, as much live media as I do, you think it would have been just

another day in the life of. But in fact, it was actually a little bit challenging with

all of you out there listening to make sure that I didn't, as they would say, affectionately

...