Earlier this month, the CDC announced that new COVID-19 boosters are recommended for all everyone 6 months and older. The federal government is also offering four free COVID tests to every household this fall. The virus is certainly still prevalent, but days of mask mandates, social distancing, and isolation are must less prevalent. Which leaves us to ask, “is COVID over?”

Wisconsin State Health Officer Paula Tran says that we have more tools and information than we did at the beginning of the pandemic. “We weren’t able to test for COVID, and we didn’t have a vaccine, and we didn’t have therapeutics,” she explains to A Public Affair host Ali Muldrow. Paula, who was recently named to de Beaumont Foundation’s ‘40 under 40 in Public Health’, joins the show to explain how the COVID response has changed and what public health officials have learned from the pandemic.

Paula Tran is the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ State Health Officer and Administrator for the Division of Public Health. She leads the vision for statewide public health and health equity strategies. She oversees aging and disability resources, communicable diseases, community health promotion, environmental and occupational health, health informatics, policy and practice alignment, and preparedness.

Photo by Waldemar on Unsplash

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