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. With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror,

in a prediction of a surge upon a surge of COVID-19 cases occurring in the coming weeks,

the country is staring at a long, dark winter. But the light at the end of the tunnel is starting

to appear. In the next few weeks, a food and drug administration advisory panel will begin

reviewing data on two COVID-19 vaccines. An authorization could come shortly thereafter,

though the pandemic is a long way from being over, the beginning of the end is in sight.

On this December 3rd episode of the Oster Home Update, we're going to discuss what comes next

in the vaccine authorization process and what the early rollout of vaccines might look like,

and how the arrival of vaccines could impact the trajectory of the pandemic in the coming months.

We'll also examine how Thanksgiving travel and gatherings are going to affect case loads in the

coming weeks. Explore how parents should talk to children about the pandemic, answer a listener

email on quarantines and highlight some acts of kindness from the Oster Home Update website.

But first, as always, we'll begin with Dr. Oster Ohms, welcome in dedication.

Thank you, Chris, and welcome to all of you again to another episode on the podcast here.

I want to begin by first thanking you and a post Thanksgiving note, for all the very,

very kind emails, cards, a sundry of different things that arrived. It was really very, very

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