At the University of Wisconsin – Madison, students are forced to take COVID tests every four days. If they don’t, they lose access to university buildings. Their testing catalogue is counted on the Safer Badgers App, which students are required to download and many believe is an invasion of privacy.
It takes a tremendous effort from the staff, University of Wisconsin students sent from the School of Pharmacy, and even volunteers from the community.
UW Health is launching a new online tool to track their current vaccination progress. The COVID-19 vaccination dashboard shows up-to-date information on where vaccination efforts stand as eligibility expands across Wisconsin.
With fewer than 3,700 COVID-19 vaccines on hand and nearly 30,000 patients already scheduled to receive a dose, the UW Health announces it will need to start rescheduling appointments to allow time to restock its shelves. Sr. Medical Director Dr. Matt Anderson explained the hospital’s capacity for delivering the coronavirus vaccine is growing, however its staff is being hamstrung by supply issues.
Just because you have been vaccinated, does not mean you can cease taking precautions, UW Health said. Doctors ask that you continue to wear a mask, social distance, and avoid large gatherings.”We’ll need to do this until most people have been vaccinated,” UW Health said in a release.
“It’s really complicated to go from zero to 100 mph and be writing the rules as you go,”— Patrick Remington, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s preventive medicine residency program, on vaccine rollout, Jan. 25, 2021
“The vaccine’s on the horizon, there’s going to be an end date to this pandemic. It’s really easy to start thinking it’s over, let’s celebrate. It’s just not, quite yet.”— Dr. Jeff Pothof, UW Health Chief Quality and Safety Officer, Jan. 27, 2021
In a novel initiative to address a series of challenges on Wisconsin campuses — projections of declining enrollment, recruiting and supporting students of color and the damage of COVID-19 — five universities are putting counselors in targeted high schools to help guide students to higher education.
Testing positive means missing work, and for those without paid leave that means missing paychecks, too. It’s a strong disincentive to get tests, said Kathleen Murphy-Ende, a clinical psychologist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics’ Department of Psychiatry. Patients have brought this up in her practice.
UW Health is sending out COVID-19 vaccine scheduling invitations to two groups: patients age 69 and older as well as patients age 65 and older in specific high-risk categories. This includes patients who are Black, Latinx and Native American.
UW Health Immunization Program’s Dr. James Conway said this population especially needs to be vaccinated because some of those health conditions can cause unpredictable immune system responses.
A new and always fatal disease that has been killing chimpanzees at a sanctuary in Sierra Leone for years has been reported for the first time by an international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW Health is shifting its focus to people 65 and older, as well as police officers and firefighters. So far, more than 3,000 people 65 and older have received their vaccine at UW Health.
According to new numbers released by the hospital Tuesday, UW Health has only found that single case of the more common flus that typically roll through this time of year.
“Realistically, we’re looking at several months here just to get through them. We have to do second doses as well, so it is going to take some time. We appreciate everybody being patient, but our hope is that we’re going to see the capacity from the manufacturing side of things really speed up and then we’ll have the most efficient distribution process possible,” says Dr. Matt Anderson, UW Health’s Senior Medical Director of Primary Care.
Over 200 University of Wisconsin nursing and pharmacy students have volunteered to help administer COVID-19 vaccines at statewide mobile clinics in local high-need areas.
Quoted: Committee co-chairman Jonathan Temte of the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health said the committee will break because it will take months to distribute vaccine shots to everyone eligible in phases underway.
Jim Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute who is a member of the panel, said during the meeting he was concerned about the effect of the break on the subcommittee members’ ability to provide information to the health care community and others about the status of the rollout.
“Now that we’re on this committee (many of us) are sort of viewed as sources of information for a lot of the people around the state and a lot of organizations and it’s been incredibly beneficial to be part of these conversations to be able to help shed some light on these things,” Conway said. “I’m a little concerned if we’re going to take a long pause that we won’t continue to be able to be those resources for others, so I do wonder where things are, what we know about how the distribution is going and if there is anything that we can offer.”
Temte agreed, saying, “At the end of the day we serve at the pleasure of the Secretary or Acting Secretary so if our efforts, skills, knowledge and opinions are of value, I think we stand ready to come back.”
’I’m glad we took equity into account when doing the vaccine rollout,’ UW Health Medical Director says.
Quoted: “Think about it — our hospitals and clinics are near capacity because we have a heavy caseload of COVID right now,” said Mary Hayney, a pharmacy professor at UW-Madison.
“We need to find other people to … administer vaccines to the public. So students are a resource that can be tapped to do that because they have the skills and are ready to go,” she said.
Quoted: “There is always a chance that in the future another new variant might emerge, and we would have to check again whether the vaccine can be effective against that new variant,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wolff, 60, received a heart and a kidney from the same deceased donor at UW Hospital in October. He was one of five people to get the double transplant at UW last year, a record.
Dr. Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer, says the UW team took appropriate isolation precautions at the time, but still had no idea what was to come.
UW-Madison announced Friday that it is watching for the new variant of the COVID-19 virus that originated in the United Kingdom after the Wisconsin Department of Health Services announced that strain had been found in Wisconsin last month.
University of Wisconsin researchers and their collaborators at Yale published findings in early November which changed current understandings of the way cells in the pancreas regulate the release of insulin, UW announced in a press release.
UW-Madison brought together experts for a panel — many of them were part of a panel on the virus one year ago. Wisconsin Department of Health Services Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ryan Westergaard said he was inspired by the willingness of volunteers, scholars and researchers to support the state’s public health mission.
UW Health is resuming plans to build a six-story clinic next to its hospital on Madison’s Far East Side, restarting a project put on hold last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic and related financial losses.
Quoted: “Now is not the time to loosen restrictions but rather double-down on our mitigation efforts and ramp up vaccine rollout,” Ajay Sethi, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Other new variants will inevitably emerge if we allow the coronavirus to spread uncontrollably.”
Noted: One way to appeal to youth on Covid-19 is by placing the wellbeing of their social group on their shoulders, said Dominique Brossard, a professor specializing in science communication at University of Wisconsin at Madison.
She pointed to the decades-old “Friends don’t let friends drink and drive” slogan in the U.S. as one successful campaign that helped lower incidence of youth drunk-driving. Simply relaying information about the virus may have limited effectiveness with the younger generation, who are accustomed to being bombarded with a constant stream of content.
When public servants face a challenge, AAAS Member and newly elected 2020 AAAS Fellow Dr. Laura Albert finds solutions. Whether helping police tackle the opioid crisis, or assisting election officials in protecting voters during a deadly pandemic — which was one of her most recent feats — the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor uses mathematical models and analytics to recommend safe, economical and often innovative remedies.
Quoted: Melissa Kono is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who works in community development and is raising a family on a farm. “Work-life balance,” she said, is not a farming staple.
Noted: Arriving in my inbox at 7:50 a.m. on Jan. 21 was an email that I anxiously had been anticipating. It was from the University of Wisconsin Madison doctor who is running UW’s clinical trial of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. I, along with 460 volunteers, had been making monthly appearances at UW Hospital to provide blood samples and to get two shots spaced a month apart.
It has been nearly a year since UW Health saw its first patient who tested positive for COVID-19. Now UW Health is looking back on its progress when it comes to COVID-19.
Saturday will mark the one-year anniversary of the first known COVID case here in Wisconsin. Today, a panel of experts at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health reflected on the lessons learned over the past year.
“President Thompson is and has been focused on strategies to combat COVID-19 on UW System campuses given their inherent congregate settings,” Mark Pitsch, spokesman for the UW System, said. “He has championed a culture of responsibility that includes wearing a mask, social distancing, hand washing and a robust testing strategy.”
“I don’t think that any of us really anticipated the extent to which asymptomatic transmission would play a role,” Dr. Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection control at UW Hospital, said Wednesday during an online panel discussion reflecting on the pandemic a year after it began.
The UW School of Medicine and Public Health organized the panel last year with professionals ranging from a variety of fields, including virology, infection control and vaccine development.
It has been nearly a year since UW Health saw its first patient who tested positive for COVID-19. Now UW Health is looking back on its progress when it comes to COVID-19.
According to UW Health, the good news is that children may be excited to pull away from their screens as the consequences of the pandemic lessen. “We know that while the pandemic has had a huge affect on this cohort and this generation, we also know that they’re going to be coming out of it together and probably very eager to connect and very eager to kind of catch up on those social skills if you will,” said Dr. Megan Moreno.
Dr. Patrick Remington, a professor emeritus in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, previously worked as an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He says a career spent studying public health policy has taught him that laws are typically only effective for the people already inclined to follow a given health recommendation, like wearing seat belts in cars or not smoking indoors.
University of Wisconsin System campuses are planning to significantly increase COVID-19 testing during the spring semester. But many students at UW-Madison will be tested twice as often as those at the state’s 25 other universities and branch campuses. In addition, new federal research shows tests used to detect outbreaks at UW System’s other 25 campuses are more likely to miss positive cases than the type of tests being used at the state’s flagship university.
“It’s really complicated to go from zero to 100 mph and be writing the rules as you go,” said Patrick Remington, former epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s preventive medicine residency program.
With people over the age of 65 becoming eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine starting next week, UW-Madison says it’s notified about 1,800 members of their campus community to make appointments.
Quoted: Dietram Scheufele, the Taylor-Bascom chair in science communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that scientists already must counter misinformation on Covid-19 vaccines. Manipulated data only makes that job harder, he said.
“It’s probably the worst possible time to deal with something like this,” he said.
Officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have launched their new saliva-based COVID-19 testing program which, once in full swing next week, will take the campus from conducting around 12,000 tests per week to 82,000.
Quoted: Committee co-chairman Dr. Jonathan Temte of the University of Wisconsin-Madison agreed.
“Our recommendation should be based on the scientific evidence, the ethical pinnings, and the feasibility,” Temte said. “And on all three accounts, one would say, absolutely. If we are saying we’re going to punish these people yet again — because they are being punished for their crimes at this point in time — this constitutes kind of a double punishment and treating them very, very differently and I’m very uncomfortable with that.”
In one of the first campus-wide emails of the new year, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank shared some new, slightly odd wisdom for the semester ahead: “Pool your drool.”
Oak was finishing up her time at UW-Madison, working to become a physical therapist. She was completing a rotation at the time in New Orleans, Louisiana — a week before moving to New York.
“We really need to come together to combat this,” said Dr. Jasmine Zapata, pediatrician and public health strategist with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. “And just like masks, social distancing and good handwashing are part of the solution, getting as many people vaccinated as possible is part of the solution.”
Those who have a primary care physician with UW Health can complete this COVID-19 vaccine waitlist form.
With the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services determining all senior citizens in the state would be eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine as soon as next week, UW Health has launched a webpage to offer more information on how it will work and to join a waitlist to be vaccinated.
Staying in separate rooms and using separate bathrooms, when possible, helps prevent household transmission, said Dr. Nasia Safdar, medical director for infection prevention at UW Hospitals and Clinics in Madison.
Though the law allows employers to mandate vaccines, UW-Madison professor emerita of law and bioethics Alta Charo said requiring employees to get the shot could lead to pushback from employees who might get vaccinated on their own but bristle at the mandate. “In the history of public health, we have frequently seen that voluntary compliance winds up more successful at the end than mandates,” Charo said.
UW Health’s AstraZeneca vaccine trial enrollment ended Friday evening. Now, those leading the trial will compile the data and eventually submit their findings to the FDA.
“We call it Operation Immunization,” said Maggie Hoernke, a third-year PharmD student at UW-Madison. She, along with second-year PharmD student Nikki Batterman, co-chair the outreach program on Immunizations for the UW student organization, Wisconsin Society of Pharmacy Students.
UW Health’s transplant program is nationally recognized. “It has grown to be one of the largest multi transplant programs in the country,” said Dr. Dixon Kaufman, Medical Director for UW Health’s Transplant Center.
Jenny Hougom gave birth to her son Lucas in August of 2019, according to a news release. He was quickly diagnosed with congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV), which is a rare virus in newborns that attacks the liver.
Quoted: Dr. David O’Connor is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UW-Madison’s school of Medicine and Public Health, where he runs a lab studying viral infections. Speaking with WORT, O’Connor said it’s common for viruses to mutate as they find new hosts.
“The genetic material for the coronavirus is called RNA, and when RNA makes copies of itself, sometimes those copies are sloppy, and a mistake gets made,” O’Connor said.
The Associated Press and other news outlets have focused on the fact the B.1.1.7 strain appears to transmit between people more quickly than other strains. Dr. Thomas Friedrich, who studies diseases and immune systems at UW-Madison, shares this same suspicion.
“This variant does appear to be more contagious, more transmissible between people, about one and half times as transmissible as previous strains. So, that’s concerning to us because it means that virus might spread a bit easier, and might be a little harder to control,” Friedrich said.
Quoted: “In meat systems, permeate can be used to reduce the amount of sodium, enhance browning, protect color, mask bitter flavors and improve structure formation,” said Susan Larson, associate researcher, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for the US Dairy Export Council, Arlington, Va. “The lactose in permeate also provides a carbohydrate that could replace a portion of the sugar in a fermented sausage.”
Noted: Scientists at the University of Wisconsin Madison are blasting bacteria with high doses of ionizing radiation to watch them evolve radiation resistance in real time and study which genes are involved.
Noted: According to a Jan. 6 preprint of a study conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, if you develop a fever while you have COVID, you may be immune to COVID for a longer period of time.
“Such an inflammatory response may be key for developing a strong anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody response,” according to the study’s authors. And if you want to stay safe, These 3 Things Could Prevent Almost All COVID Cases, Study Finds.
Quoted: But fellow co-chairman Dr. Jonathan Temte, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said politics shouldn’t play a role in public health decision-making.
“It is our purview to make whatever we think is the best recommendation,” he said. “I don’t think it’s ethically acceptable to say we’re going to do congregate living but exclude the incarcerated, because by definition, that’s congregate living.”
