Skipping those beloved traditions and not celebrating with family members and loved ones adds stress to what has already been a difficult year, said Shilagh Mirgain, a distinguished psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
Dr. Jeffrey Pothof, an emergency medicine physician and chief quality officer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s health system, said exit testing can be helpful as long as students understand the limitations, stressing that a negative result “doesn’t give you a free pass” to act recklessly.
Students should take other preventive actions to avoid spreading the virus over the holidays. That means limiting social activity with groups, wearing face coverings and social distancing as much as possible, Pothof and others said.
UW Health is sharing more recommendations for safely quarantining today.
UW Health says quarantining is usually recommended in cases where someone may have been exposed to COVID-19. Isolating is recommended when someone already has a positive COVID-19 diagnosis and must stay away from people.
UW-Health said at the moment, they have enough convalescent plasma to cover their current needs. “We’re managing as well as anyone can expect,” William Hartman, UW-Health principal investigator of covid-19 clinical trials said.
Early results from a clinical trial at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in July showed the plasma helped 94% of patients who were considered severely ill avoid having to go to intensive care or being placed on mechanical ventilation.
Some universities in particularly hard-hit communities may be asking students who go home this month not to return until January. One of those is Wisconsin’s flagship university, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
FluGen, which has been working with research from UW-Madison for years on developing a universal flu vaccine — one that wouldn’t have to be updated each year, as the flu shot is now — is incorporating a coronavirus vaccine into its plans, though president and CEO Paul Radspinner said there is no timeline for getting the vaccine to human studies as of yet.
UnityPoint Health-Meriter, SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital-Madison and UW Health said Friday all three systems will continue postponing non-urgent procedures and surgeries to increase space in intensive care units.
A team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is at UW-Madison this week as it looks into how common it is for someone to have COVID-19 and not know it.
UW Health explained Thursday that Carmen Lerma was transferred to University Hospital in October after already having COVID-19. Health officials said the virus had damaged Lerma’s lungs so much that the double lung transplant was her only chance of survival.
Alan Fish, UW Madison Vice Chancellor of Facilities, says if patients test positive, they can do a follow-up test. If patients test negative but have COVID-19 symptoms, they will also receive the follow-up test.
CDC researchers are analyzing test samples from the football players and staff members to pinpoint the exact cause of an outbreak the team experienced, while UW students are volunteering blood to see if they contracted the coronavirus in the past.
During the layoff, more than two dozen players and staff members tested positive for the coronavirus. University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank and Athletic Director Barry Alvarez made the decision to pause football activities on Oct. 28. That meant canceling games against the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Purdue Boilermakers.
Oguz Alagoz, a University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering professor who specializes in modeling the spread of infectious diseases, said many factors, like changing human behavior or the availability of a vaccine, could impact the accuracy of a projection. But he agrees with IHME’s estimate.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will start offering free COVID -19 testing to area residents starting Thursday as part of a new effort by the UW System to help with testing efforts statewide.
UW Health is thanking and recognizing veterans.
Rapid antigen testing from Abbott BinaxNOW delivers results in as little as 15 minutes. Tests will be available by appointment only at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium. The site is fully accessible.
The university will start offering the tests to everyone, not just students and staff, and they do not need to be suffering symptoms to participate.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will start offering free COVID-19 testing to area residents, ages five years and older, starting Thursday as part of a new effort by the UW System to help with testing efforts statewide.
UW-Madison will offer free COVID-19 tests to members of the local community, not just UW students and staff, starting on Thursday, Nov. 12, at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium.
Meanwhile, UW-Madison said its rapid tests for COVID-19 will be available to the general public starting Thursday, by appointment only at Nielsen Tennis Stadium.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will begin offering free rapid COVID-19 testing to all community members Thursday as part of a federally funded initiative.
“Surfaces can occasionally be a source of transmission,” said Dave O’Connor, an expert on the genome of the virus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “They do not appear to be a major, or the major, source of transmission in areas where the virus is already endemic. If you have otherwise eradicated the virus, such as New Zealand or this region of China, vigilance will be required to prevent reintroductions by both goods and travelers.”
According to Jeff Pothoff, UW Health’s chief quality officer, the university hospital is faced with similar realities. A top concern is how to staff the coronavirus units, as nurses are working double, triple shifts. He says this is not “sustainable.”
UW researchers are analyzing the viral samples to determine whether there was one point of introduction that led to the spread or if the outbreak included multiple clusters of the virus. That could take weeks to find out because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now involved in the analysis of the outbreak.
Noting UW Hospital just opened a seventh COVID wing and may have to begin treating patients in waiting rooms, Rhodes-Conway urged residents to take responsibility before the health care system is overwhelmed.
UW-Madison required residents of two large dorms to get tested Monday as the number of COVID-19 cases on campus rises to a level unseen since September.
The pharmaceutical company paused trial in September due to participant’s unexplained illness.
Dr. Jonathan Temte, associate dean for public health and community engagement at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health, sits on a state subcommittee planning for the eventual COVID-19 vaccine distribution. He said there are numerous people in Wisconsin working hard to come up with the fairest and most ethical approach to distributing a COVID-19 vaccine to those who are at highest risk and those performing essential functions.
A study by University of Wisconsin researchers—which had been featured on the National Federation of State High School Associations website—asserts that high school sports in Wisconsin haven’t led to an increase in Covid-19 infections among high school athletes. But Robert N. Golden, Dean of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health, said the views of the study’s lead researcher don’t represent the opinions of the university, that the study hasn’t been peer-reviewed and that its design has limitations. “High schools across the country are working to make the best decisions they can regarding the health and safety of their athletes, and we do not believe this report should play a major role in shaping their decisions,” Dr. Golden said.
Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer for UW Health, said UW Hospital on Friday again broke the record for new COVID-19 patients. He wouldn’t provide numbers, but said the patient count is “at least triple what we had back in the spring.”
As of Friday, 57 COVID-19 patients were at the hospital, including 16 in intensive care, quadruple the volume from six weeks earlier. If Wisconsin’s coronavirus surge doesn’t turn around, the hospital may soon have to place infected patients in pre-op waiting areas or operating rooms, said Dr. Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer for UW Health.
Romer and Elwood both say by using PPE like masks, the public can slow the spread of Coronavirus.
“Our numbers in Wisconsin are really pretty out of control,” said Dr. Jeff Pothof, Chief Quality Officer at UW-Health. “We have a significant number of COVID patients here at UW Hospital.”
While not subject to the county’s order because it’s considered state property, UW-Madison is also letting “many” employees work from home, according to spokesperson Meredith McGlone. She was not immediately able to provide a percentage but said the university has “also modified some office layouts to promote physical distancing for those employees who have to work on campus.”
On Wednesday the University of Wisconsin announced its campuses will open free “surge testing sites” that provide rapid-result COVID-19 tests to off-campus community members, with the aim of alleviating the high demand for testing across the state.
Testing sites will be set up at every University of Wisconsin System campus, including two-year campuses that are often located in more rural areas of the state. Most sites are scheduled to open up next week.
The University of Wisconsin System will pioneer a new, federally funded testing plan by providing 250,000 COVID-19 tests at on-campus sites as early as Thursday.
UW Health advised voters wear a mask over their nose and mouth while waiting in line to vote, as well as using hand sanitizer after touching shared surfaces such as door knobs and voting machines.
University of Wisconsin football coach Paul Chryst had completed his daily testing for the COVID-19 virus by early afternoon Oct. 23. Chryst’s result came back negative that Friday, as did every other rapid-response antigen test from a group that included his staff, players and other game-day personnel.
The issue is especially important for schools serving a national market, such as the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The public university, in a state hard hit this fall by the virus, has about 32,000 undergraduates. University officials say they will expand testing hours on the weekend before Thanksgiving to ensure that any student who wants a viral test before leaving Madison can get one. Those who test positive and live in campus housing would be offered a room to live in isolation temporarily.
University of Wisconsin-Madison athletic director Barry Alvarez says the total number of positive COVID-19 cases within the Badgers’ football program has increased to 22.
As a result, public safety measures have been largely left up to municipalities and individuals, said Patrick Remington, former epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The question is not so much what policy needs to be enacted, but what are people willing to embrace?” said Ajay Sethi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “A policy is only as effective as people will follow it.”
“I don’t see it as being a cure, but I do believe it will end up being a very good medicine though,” said Dr. William Hartman, an assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
“It is absolutely exhausting right now,” said Dr. Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer at UW Health, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s hospital and medical arm. Nearly a third of its COVID-19 patients are in intensive care, filling all three wings of the ICU, he said. Some require one-on-one care around the clock.
Ajay Sethi is an associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said small social gatherings are likely contributing to spread of the coronavirus in Wisconsin just as much as large gatherings.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison says the number of active COVID-19 cases within the football program had increased to 16 as of Thursday morning.
Kidney disease is often hidden but quite pervasive. According to 2019 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in seven Americans—37 million adults—have some chronic form of the condition. This means these vital organs aren’t filtering toxins and waste out of the blood as well as they should, but they haven’t completely failed. Although simple blood tests can identify kidney deficiencies, explains Fahad Aziz, a nephrologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, these cases rarely develop symptoms.
Next week, the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will resume enrolling patients for a study that’s been on hold since early September. The study is for a coronavirus vaccine produced by Oxford University and the British pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca. Thirty-six participants received the first of two shots before the study was paused. Those participants will now have the option to receive their second dose.
With coronavirus infections surging across the state, city and UW-Madison officials are pleading for a peaceful, at-home Halloween celebration instead of the usual festivities that bring thousands to State Street for costumes, contests, concerts and crammed bars.
UHS overcomes barriers to providing out-of-state students with mental health services.
Tonight, we asked UW Health’s Dr. Jeff Pothof about what the chances are of disease spread if one or two Badgers players test positive.
UW-Madison students who had COVID-19 may be key in the fight against the virus.
One bright spot: after an initial surge in September, UW-Madison has managed to keep the case count down, with only two cases reported on Monday and a seven-day average of 16.
The Badgers Give Back Blood Drive runs from Tuesday, Oct. 27 through Thursday, Oct. 29, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at The Nick, on W. Dayton Street.
NPR’s David Greene talks to Dr. Jeffrey Pothof, an emergency room doctor in Madison and chief quality officer at the University of Wisconsin Health, about the surge in COVID-19 cases in the state.
Since the Journal Sentinel and the State Journal published their reports, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Athletic Department has kept quiet on Mertz’ condition, issuing a statement Sunday citing medical privacy as the reason it won’t release coronavirus test results for any student athletes.
“It’s a combination of a lot of things that have occurred at the same time,” Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin Madison, told me. “It was a perfect storm.”
