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, more than three months since the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States,

we're seeing cases and deaths starting to decline in some of the hardest-hit parts of the country

and rise in other parts of the country. And US cases overall seem to be plateauing,

but not falling, yet. Several states are ending state home orders. Do these trends concern you?

Well, thank you, Chris. It's good to be back with you again. Before I begin, I started a little

bit of a tradition here and I would like to continue that because it's something I think that

sets the tone for this entire discussion. And that is dedicating these episodes to

to very special people. And I think for personal reasons, I just want to acknowledge today

all the parents who have had to deal with the deaths of their children,

many of them adult children with regards to this virus. And you know, my mother always told me

who have now deceived, but the one hope that she had in her life was that she died before all of

kids. And that's the most painful of all to go through in life is to bury one of your children.

And this week I dedicate this to all of you parents out there who have watched a child, whether

they be adult or younger in the last few months do this. So moving on to your question, where

we at, where are we going, what's going on? We are in a transition stage. What's happening is we

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