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.

It's October 14th, but if it feels a little bit like June to you, you're not alone.

There's a little bit of optimism in the air, as new COVID-19 cases continue to decline in the United States, and the Delta-Fueled Late Summer Surge appears to be receiving.

The rate of workers returning to the office has the highest its been since the pandemic.

With booster shots being rolled out and an authorization for use of COVID-19 vaccines and younger children soon to come, a return to normal seems a little closer.

Of course, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are much higher than they were in June, and the Delta variant is still enacting a tremendous toll in this country.

Still, it feels like maybe the worst is behind us.

But as Dr. Ostrome will explain in this episode of the podcast, we may need to readjust our thinking about this phase of the pandemic and what these next few months will look like.

We'll talk more about that as we take a look at the state of the pandemic here in the US and in the rest of the world.

We'll also discuss a new CIDRAP paper on masks, review the latest data on vaccine protection and booster shots, and answer a COVID query about boosters.

And you'll hear about the latest beautiful place submission from one of our listeners. But first, as always, we'll begin with Dr. Ostrome's opening comments and dedication.

Thank you, Chris, and welcome to all of you to another episode of the update.

This episode is going to give us a glimpse into the future from the perspective as we see it coming and what you might expect in terms of the incidence of disease, what the vaccines might look like going forward and their use.

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