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,

and I'm your host for these conversations.

It's September 24th, and the United States this week passed another grim milestone in the

coronavirus pandemic, surpassing more than 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, more than one-fifth of the global

death total. Well, that staggering number alone is a measure of the pandemic's devastating impact.

It doesn't account for the other ways the virus has affected health in this country.

How many people have forgotten needed or routine care because of concerns about being exposed

to the coronavirus, or couldn't get that care because their doctor's office was shut down,

and how has that affected their health? Later on in this episode of the Oster Home Update,

we're going to discuss these downstream health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. We'll also get

Dr. Oster Home's view of the current state of the pandemic in the United States and the rest of

the world. Delve into the latest vaccine news and answer a listener email. But first, as always,

we'll start with Dr. Oster Home's welcome and dedication. Thank you, Chris, and thank you to all

of you who are joining us here today. It's great to have you. One more week, hopefully one more

week closer to the end of this pandemic. And I just want to thank you. I know you all have many

opportunities to seek your information on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 in many other locations.

But I'm glad you come back to here. To our team of people at Sid Rap who make every effort to,

...