Hi everybody. Before we get started with this week's episode of the OSTROM update,

I want to tell you about a special event coming up. It's called Inside the Pandemic.

This is a candid conversation with the Sidrapp Directorate Dr. Michael Oestrom and former

senior advisor to the Biden administration's COVID response Andy Slavitt as they talk one-on-one

about COVID-19 challenges, ripple effects, and what's next. Don't miss this conversation

on November 18th at 11.30am Central Standard Time. You'll need to register for the event

and you can find a link to the registration page on our episode description.

And now to this week's episode of the OSTROM update.

Hello and welcome to the OSTROM update COVID-19, a podcast on the COVID-19 pandemic with Dr. Michael

Oestrom. Dr. Oestrom is an internationally recognized medical detective and director of the Center

for Infectious Disease Research and Policy or Sidrapp at the University of Minnesota. In this podcast,

Dr. Oestrom 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 Sidrapp news,

and I'm your host for these conversations.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the OSTROM update podcast. As of Monday this week,

the official global death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 5 million.

Even though that number is likely a significant undercount, it's still stunning.

As the New York Times pointed out, such a loss would wipe out almost the entire population of

Melbourne, Australia, or most of the nation of Singapore. The Times went on to note that the pace

of confirmed deaths, however, has slowed slightly since the world reached 4 million deaths in July.

Assigned that vaccines are having an impact, at least in some parts of the world.

But a million people have died since July, and in many parts of the world, only a fraction

...