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.

After weeks of skyrocketing national case numbers, the much-awaited decline in the

Omicron-fueled surge appears to have begun in the United States.

So cases are still rising in a handful of states, new daily infections nationwide are

down 35% over the past week.

Hospitalizations remain high and the number of COVID-19 deaths is higher than it's been since

last winter, when the vaccine rollout was just beginning.

But there does appear to be some light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course, as it has been the case throughout this pandemic, the good news doesn't last

for too long.

Now we have a sub variant of Omicron to deal with.

Today in the podcast, we're going to discuss what's going on with Omicron here in the

United States and around the world, and we'll lay out what we know about the Omicron

sub variant BA2 and the impact it could have.

We'll also talk about the latest data on the efficacy of booster shots, answer our COVID

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