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.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Oster Home Update podcast.

This is the first episode of our new every other week schedule and we have a lot of news to catch

up on as we bring you up to speed on the latest in the COVID-19 pandemic. This week on the podcast,

we're going to give you an update on the International Spread of COVID-19 and what countries are seeing

surges and take a closer look at the spread of the newest variant of concern. We'll also discuss the

declining vaccine rollout in the United States and how it might shape our COVID future. The Biden

administration's newly announced global vaccine donation, the ongoing controversy over the origins

of SARS-CoV-2, and the issue of immune passports. And will they be a new listener question segment

called COVID queries? But first we'll begin with Dr. Oster Home's opening comments and dedication.

Thank you Chris. It's great to be with everyone again. I'm not sure that you missed out in the

last two weeks, but I have to say that it's surely broke a rhythm for us in terms of thinking

about everything you read, everything you see or hear and how that might be applied to the podcast

and then realizing, oh my, it's actually 10 days away or 7 days away. And so we did have our own

different rhythm this past two weeks, but it's great to be back with you. We appreciate the fact

that you're with us again and hope that this new format works. As I mentioned in previous podcasts,

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