This month, CIDRAP is commemorating its 20th anniversary.

Since we first opened our doors, our team is created with now a globally renowned center, tackling the world's toughest challenges in infectious disease and public policy.

In celebration of the Smilestone anniversary, a generous CIDRAP supporter has offered a transformational matching gift to support our efforts and ensure we're able to continue our important work into the future.

For a limited time, your gift will be matched at 50%, helping to build a solid endowment to support CIDRAP's work.

Please visit cidrap.umn.edu-thord-donate.

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 CIDRAP, 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 CIDRAP News, and I'm your host for these conversations.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ostrome Update podcast. Nearly three months after the summer surge of the Delta variant began and plunged the country back into some of the worst days it's seen during the pandemic, the United States is finally starting to get some good news.

Over the past month, new infections have dropped by more than 34% and hospitalizations are dropping as well.

The country is still reporting nearly 2000 deaths a day, but that number is also starting to fall.

This is not where we thought we would be back in late May, when millions of vaccine doses a day were going into arms across the country, and the coronavirus appeared to be on its way out, and were not out of the woods yet, but we'll take it.

On this October 7th episode of the podcast, we're going to discuss the decline in U.S. cases and where we're headed after we review the global situation.

We'll also continue our look at how the Delta variant is affecting children in schools, discuss the recent news on an oral antiviral medication for COVID-19, and answer a listener question about flu shots and timing with COVID-19 boosters.

Dr. Ostrome will also share how his own personal outlook has changed since he's received his booster dose.

But first, as always, we'll begin with Dr. Ostrome's opening comments and dedication.

Thank you, Chris, and welcome back everyone to this week's edition of the podcast.

I know that you have many choices for your information on COVID-19, and the fact that you're still looking for information, and you're still with us is great news.

So thank you very much. If you're new to the podcast, welcome.

I promise you you'll get my unvarnished view of the world on this issue, and hopefully it will provide some insight.

Let me begin by just acknowledging that we're in a journey this summer with this virus here in the United States, and for that matter around the world.

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