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 October 1st and as colder weather starts settling in in parts of the country

and the holiday months inch closer, people are starting to think about travel plans and family

get-togethers and how they may be different this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

How safe should we feel getting out of an airplane from an infection perspective?

Should people be considering smaller holiday gatherings to limit potential spread of the coronavirus?

These are some of the questions Dr. Oster Home will be addressing later in this episode

of the Oster Home Update. But first we're going to take a look at the current state of the pandemic

here in the United States and the rest of the world. We'll also discuss how the epidemiology

of the virus is shifting. What serology testing is telling us about the number of people who have

been infected and why approval of the COVID-19 vaccine won't bring an immediate end to the pandemic.

But before we get to all that, we'll start with Dr. Oster Home's welcome and dedication.

Well, thank you Chris and welcome to all of you listening today. I appreciate

you being with us as we say each week and said with sincerity. We appreciate so much the fact

that you take time to be with us to get this information on where we're at with the COVID pandemic.

I've thought a lot about these dedications and what they mean and clearly they're very personal.

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