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.

Earlier this week, the United States surpassed 675,000 COVID-19 deaths since the beginning

of the pandemic.

A number roughly equivalent to the death toll from the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.

And although the surge in cases that began in July looks like it's finally starting to

decline, we may be far from done.

The country has already reported more COVID-19 deaths this month than in all of August,

and September is shaping up to be the deadliest month of the pandemic since February.

So where do we go from here?

Will the US continue to see high rates of infection, hospitalization, and death as we head

into the fall and winter with few restrictions, or will vaccine mandates, booster shots,

and vaccine authorization for children begin to turn the tide?

We're going to discuss these issues this week on the podcast as we assess the state of

the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and abroad.

Our discussion will include a closer look at the latest data on vaccine efficacy, an examination

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