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 week on the podcast, as the United States settles into its summer of reopening,

we're going to take a look at the growing divide between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

And how that divide will impact the trajectory of the pandemic, both globally and domestically.

Does the lack of vaccines in many parts of the world mean more dangerous variants or in our

future? Will the G7's vaccine pledge be enough to curb the continuing spread of the virus in some

of the most vulnerable countries in the world? And does vaccine hesitancy in the US mean that

increasing infections is inevitable come fall? We'll also discuss the latest news in the highly

transmissible Delta variant, examine vaccine mandates on college campuses, and answer some

COVID queries from our listeners. But first, we'll begin with Dr. Oster Home's opening comments

and dedication. Thank you, Chris. And welcome back everyone to another episode of the podcast.

We welcome any newcomers and in particular, we welcome back our podcast family members.

We're adjusting to this every two week podcast as opposed to every week edition. I can tell you

that the amount of information doesn't slow down in two weeks versus one. And so it's a more of a

challenge for us to try to focus on those issues, which we think we can put into the podcast in a

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