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 February 4th and while the days are getting longer, the coronavirus vaccine rollout is picking

up speed and the United States continues to see a welcome decline in new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

There are dark clouds on the horizon. The widespread global transmission of the virus has promoted

the emergence of mutations that have enabled several SARS-CoV-2 variants to flourish and spread.

In those variants, now threatened to bring a resurgence of infections and return us to the

dark days of the fall. But are there ways to get ahead of the variants and the threat that they pose?

On this episode of the Oster Home Update, we're going to explore whether switching up the nation's

vaccination strategy could be one way to blunt the impact of the variants. We'll also take a look at

some of the latest vaccine news. The current state of the pandemic here in another parts of the world,

answer some listener emails on the effectiveness of double masking, and hear about an active kindness

from one of our listeners. But first, we'll begin with Dr. Oster Home's welcome and dedication.

Oh, thank you, Chris. Welcome, everyone, to another weekly podcast of the Oster Home Update.

We welcome you. I also appreciate all you do to contribute to the acts of kindness in the world.

We keep hearing about more and more of them, and I can't tell you how much we appreciate hearing from you

in any number of ways, questions, comments, advice, sometimes criticism and often well-founded,

...