Hello and welcome to the Ostrome Update COVID-19, a podcast on the COVID-19 pandemic with

Dr. Michael Ostrome.

Dr. Ostrome 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. Ostrome 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 Dahl, reporter for CITRAP News, and I'm your host for these conversations.

Welcome back everyone, to another episode of the Ostrome Update Podcast.

In preparation for today's podcast, I decided to go through some of the scripts for episodes

re-recorded last September.

And what I was struck by was how many of the questions I asked in those podcasts

remain with us, despite the widespread availability of highly effective vaccines.

There was the concern about how cooler weather in the return of students to schools would

impact the spread of the coronavirus.

Uncertainty about how bad the pandemic might be in the coming months and whether our hospitals

would hold up.

And the growing realization that the pandemic was impacting everyone's mental health.

Today, a year later, the Delta variant has upended many of our hopes about what this

fall would look like once we had a vaccine.

And we're back to grappling with many of those same issues.

So on this September 9th episode of the Ostrome Update, after we get the latest on the trajectory

of the pandemic in the US and around the globe, we'll discuss whether the return of K-12

...