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 been more than a year since the coronavirus pandemic began, but if you took a quick look at

the latest headlines this week, January 2021 feels an awful lot like January 2020. While

the reduction in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the United States and the

fall out of vaccines is bringing a glimmer of hope, earlier in the week, President Joe Biden

announced strict travel bans on non-US citizens traveling from the United Kingdom, 26 European

countries, Brazil and South Africa. In fact, borders are being tightened throughout the

world as health officials try to stave off the arrival of more contagious coronavirus variants

and prevent another wave of infections. On this January 28th episode of the Oster Home

Update, we're going to discuss where we are in the trajectory of this pandemic, which surpassed

100 million cases this week. The impact the variants might have and the vaccine rollout.

We'll also answer some listener emails on what continues to be one of the most challenging

questions of the pandemic, whether to reopen schools for in-person learning and how that

issue may be complicated by the coronavirus variants. And we'll hear about an active kindness

from one of our listeners. But first, as always, we'll begin with Dr. Oestrom's Welcome

and Dedication.

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