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.

Mike, since we last spoke, the Trump administration and the CDC have issued guidelines for reopening

America that use a three-phase approach based on criteria that states need to meet. In your

opinion, are we ready to reopen? Thank you, Chris. It's good to be back with you again

today. Like every other podcast, start out by thanking all those who listen to this podcast.

Today I would like to actually take a moment and actually dedicate this podcast to someone

very special to me. This past week, I had the painful experience of knowing that someone

who was very near and dear to me, my personal physician of 30 years, a dear friend and

colleague and infectious disease physician, Dr. Alan Kind, who was an internist here at

Park Necklet Medical Center, died from pancheerotic cancer. And since March 10th, I've been unable

to see him because of the COVID-19 epidemic pandemic. And surely did not want to put him

at any increased risk of acquiring it from my asymptomatic potential carriage or that.

It was very hard not to see him in those last days. And while I realized that he did not

succumb to COVID-19 infection, it reminded me of all the families, all the colleagues,

all the best friends out there who never had a chance to say goodbye to that special

someone in their life who died because of COVID, and they couldn't see them. And so while

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