UW-Madison announced on Wednesday it was one of 32 sites for a clinical trial testing an existing drug called ruxolitinib as a way to prevent a COVID-19 complication where a patient’s immune system kicks into deadly overdrive. Hospitals in Milwaukee and Madison are also investigating convalescent plasma from recovered patients to treat those with active infections.
The majority of people who die from COVID-19 are killed by a dangerous immune system overreaction called a cytokine storm, but researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and dozens of other sites around the world are now testing a potential weapon against it.
Among other things, chronic stress contributes to inflammation and vascular disease, and can even directly damage the brain’s neurons. “This can lead to a slew of health issues, including atrophy in areas of the brain that are key for memory and cognition,” says Megan Zuelsdorff, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing investigating the mechanisms underlying cognitive health and dementia disparities.
Paul A. Smith, the artist behind a new exhibit at UW Hosptial called “Facing Addiction,” joins Live at Four to talk about his new project. The 20 portraits each put a real face to the problem of addiction in an attempt to help eliminate the stigma around the public health issue.
“We think of masking as this seemingly simple intervention, but it’s rather complex,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Malia Jones of the Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studies how the places we spend time affect our health and how diseases spread in those places.
This weekend marked the official start of summer, and it already feels different than other summers because of the pandemic.
Quoted: For the time being, researchers say cats should be a focus, because studies have found they are highly susceptible to the coronavirus and because they are common pets and roam freely in many places. In a study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists infected cats with the virus and found that those cats could infect other cats. No felines showed symptoms, but the amount of virus they shed in nasal swabs was similar to that shed by some humans, said co-author Peter Halfmann, a University of Wisconsin virologist.
“If a human can transmit to a human with this amount of virus being shed, it’s definitely possible for a cat to transmit to a human,” Halfmann said.
Noted: The study shows a decent representation of minorities,” said William Hartman, an assistant professor of anesthesiology at UW Health. “That’s an important point given that the minority communities have been hit so, so hard by COVID-19.”
Hartman is leading survivor plasma trials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was not involved with this study.
Author Jordan Nutting is a AAAS Mass Media Fellow writing about science at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this summer. She’s working on a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “This is just a sliver of the nearly 6 million people in Wisconsin,” said Patrick Remington, an epidemiologist and a professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “These were highly visible and they could be high risk, but in reality, these were isolated events.”
“It is really hard to isolate one thing when so many things are going,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We cannot deny such an impact because of people on the street in public, standing close and shouting out and not wearing masks. That is ideal to spread the virus,” said Song Gao, assistant professor at the UW-Madison Geospatial Data Science Lab.
Oguzhan Alagoz, a professor of industrial engineering and infectious disease modeling expert at the UW-Madison, said his work shows social distancing adherence plays a major factor in the spread of coronavirus.
“Me and my family are also tired of being careful,” Alagoz said. “But unfortunately we cannot get super comfortable. … People should still be careful. Wearing masks, I think, is important, especially indoors.”
Quoted: UW-Health Doctor Tiffany Green studies the causes and consequences of racial disparities in health.
“We see across the country that Black Americans are dying disproportionately relative to our share of our population, and that is especially true here in Wisconsin unfortunately,” Green said.
“Currently we’re talking about what can we do about the police, but the police are not the only issue, every other social system was built on the same inequities,” Alvin Thomas, UW-Madison Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Human Development and Family Studies, said.
One study will involve DHS partnering with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW) to test for COVID-19 antibodies in people across the state. Antibody testing looks at whether someone has been infected with the coronavirus in the past, whether or not they showed symptoms.
Somewhere in America, a 14-year-old Black boy is playing video games in his room, and his parents are satisfied that they are keeping him safe from COVID-19. But then, in Minneapolis, George Floyd is killed by a police officer, and his parents are reminded that their son’s life could just as easily be snuffed out.
Author Alvin Thomas is an assistant professor in the Human Development and Family Studies Department in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The presence of a mask there isn’t going to do anything until somebody actually puts it on and keeps it on,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, the medical director of infection control and prevention at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Noelle LoConte is an oncologist at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center. She said for some of the sickest cancer patients, the idea of contracting coronavirus is too much to take, and they decide it’s time to stop fighting.
“There has been increasing evidence that mindfulness meditation – or the ability to pay attention to one’s body, thoughts and emotions in a nonjudgmental way – can have an antidepressant effect,” says Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry and founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “The idea is that just like physical exercise builds muscle, we can build our mental muscles to become more aware and calm in the faces of challenges and stress.”
Early Saturday morning, several hundred health care providers and advocates rallied at the state Capitol in Madison. The Student National Medical Association chapter at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health organized the event, called “White Coats 4 Black Lives.”
The event, which was organized by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Student National Medical Association, was meant to mobilize the health care community to take actionable steps toward eliminating racism in the practice of medicine.
There is disagreement about whether such old laws could immediately take effect or whether they would need to be re-enacted, said University of Wisconsin-Madison law and bioethics professor Alta Charo, because they have been rendered ineffective for decades.
Health care precautions for COVID-19 are built around stopping the droplets, since “there’s not a lot of evidence for aerosol spread of COVID-19,” said Patrick Remington, a former CDC epidemiologist and director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“I don’t think we’re at the stage yet where we can go all in on one possible explanation,” says Donna Werling, assistant professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the study. Instead, the sex bias is likely due to a combination of many factors, which could include both those that protect girls and those that sensitize boys, among others, she says.
“A face mask is just one component of the things we need to do to minimize our risk,” said Dr. Jeff Pothof, Chief Quality Officer with UW Health. “We don’t know if people are just getting tired of them and they don’t understand the benefit or they’re just confused.”
“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, a top leader with the World Health Organization.
For now, researchers caution against reading too much into the available studies. J. Wesley Pike, a biochemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said there is not enough proof yet to suggest a meaningful relationship between vitamin D and COVID-19. Researchers will need to conduct further studies to determine if that vitamin is effective in combating the coronavirus. “There’s simply no evidence that taking vitamin D will protect you,” Pike said. “But again, we don’t know. The answer is it’s possible.”
A surge of young people with painful purplish lesions on their toes in Madison and around the country has stumped doctors, with the phenomenon coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic but most patients testing negative and showing no other symptoms.
The FDA authorized the emergency use of the anti-viral after studies showed it shortened the recovery time for people hospitalized with COVID-19.
Psychology Professor Diane C. Gooding: Especially now, people should not be forced to choose between risking their mental health and risking their physical health to go to their mental health practitioner’s office. It is imperative that folks’ mental health treatment experience little to no disruption.
J. Wesley Pike, a biochemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said there is not enough proof yet to suggest a meaningful relationship between vitamin D and COVID-19. Researchers will need to conduct further studies to determine if that vitamin is effective in combating the coronavirus.
Don and Traci both attended Kaukauna High School. Don received a degree in Economics from University of Wisconsin – Madison as well as a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh and Traci earned a degree in Family & Consumer Relations from University of Wisconsin – Madison. Prior to their new venture together, Don worked in the financial services sector for a Fortune 500 company and Traci worked in the health insurance industry as a business analyst.
Quoted: “We found substantial variation across communities in the proportion of people who had these risk factors for severe complications,” said Maureen Smith, a physician and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “That finding suggests that matching community with the right resources needs to take into account that communities are different.”
The information compiled by UW researchers can help identify potential hot spots, said Jessica Bonham-Werling, director of the Neighborhood Health Partnership Program, which prepared the reports, at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. That in turn can help public health and other officials make decisions on where to allocate resources, from testing and contact tracing to community services, such as delivering groceries.
The United Faculty and Academic Staff union released a list of demands in May for an improved pandemic response. Among them is an extension of all fixed-term terminal appointments by at least one year, which would prevent the risk of staff losing health insurance or benefits during the pandemic.
Quoted: ARDS is the most common cause for COVID-19 patients being transferred into the intensive care unit, said Lynn Schnapp, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
University of Wisconsin-Madison graduates Jesse (MD’14) and Joel Charles (MD’14) grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Green Bay and said they quickly learned how race, society and the environment can affect people’s health and access to care.
Quoted: Jim Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute, said the good news is that being outdoors decreases the risk of transmission.
“However, since the primary transmission is from human to human, individuals in close quarters with little movement do have increased opportunity for higher ‘quality’ contact and subsequent infection,” he said in an email. “Obviously it depends on how many infected people there are in the group, and how careful individuals are about their own hygiene.”
“It’s really disappointing to hear that the police in Madison took actions that exacerbated the risk of transmission at the protest, like pushing people together into crowded spaces, forming riot lines, and using chemicals that make people cough and spread more droplets,” said Malia Jones, a social epidemiologist and assistant scientist in health geography at the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Being outdoors might reduce your risk, but being in a protest where people are shouting and talking loudly — that might put more virus in the air. So, it’s really about staying physically distant from others and wearing a mask, so in case you’re sick and don’t know it, you reduce the chances of transmitting it to others,” said Patrick Remington, professor emeritus of public health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
Quoted: Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection control at UW Health, said she noticed that the gatherings violated distancing recommendations. But she said she had to weigh which was the greater threat to society: COVID-19, or accepting what Safdar called “murder in broad daylight” by police.
Protests are another way of engaging in the political process — which is “essential,” said UW-Madison epidemiologist Patrick Remington.
“We have to get back to being engaged in society, we just have to do that understanding that there’s an infectious disease that could make you pay a high (price) for that involvement,” he said.
Several UW Health clinics are re-opening this week to give patients more flexibility when it comes to receiving care during the coronavirus pandemic.
Protesting in a pandemic is about “harm reduction,” UW-Madison epidemiologist Malia Jones said, though the risk of infection cannot be completely eliminated.
This week, UW Health is reopening several primary care clinics, including one in Madison and several in area communities.
If you are contemplating a play date, taking into account all these risks, you will need good communication with the other parents. “A start would be, hi, our kids have been asking about getting together, and as you know, this is a complicated conversation right now,” said Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. A parent could continue, “I wanted to start with an open conversation, see where you are, tell you where I am, and see if it’s possible to send a consistent message to our kids.”
Increased eating and alcohol intake are two trends UW Health registered dietitians are seeing during COVID-19.
Quoted: Dr. Jon Temte, an associate dean in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and a former chairman of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and Dr. James Conway, also at UW-Madison, is a leader over time in the American Academy of Pediatrics for immunization and infectious disease strategies.
“It worries us,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, the medical director for infection prevention at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison. “We wonder if this is a trend in an unfavorable direction.”
Quoted: Oguzhan Alagoz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an infectious disease modeling expert, said the increases Wisconsin is seeing are likely driven by many factors, like increased testing availability.
Alagoz said early mobility data shows people are taking precautions despite moving more.
“With current levels of movement, if people didn’t wear masks, if people were behaving as they were pre-March 10, believe me, we would have seen a double, triple, exponential increase in the number of cases,” Alagoz said.
A new program is providing financial help for UW Health employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, UW Health officials planned for the worst, preparing “space, people and stuff” for a surge of COVID-19 patients in need of hospital care. Despite a steadily growing number of positive cases across the state, the surge never materialized, but the plans remain in place in the event of another wave of infections, said Dr. Aimee Becker, chief medical officer for UW Health.
Column by Dr. James Stein, a cardiologist and faculty member at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
Employees will have to fill out an application, found on the employee intranet U-Connect, and if an employee is approved, they will receive $500 as assistance payment added to their next paycheck, UW Health says.
Noted: The CDC recommends the public wear cloth masks and not use masks meant for health professionals, including N95 masks. Given that you have “significant underlying conditions,” it’s important that you keep yourself safe and consult your doctor on how best to do that.
It’s safer to avoid public restrooms. If you must use one, be sure you have your mask on when you are inside. If you are not the only occupant, keep six or more feet from others. Avoid touching surfaces including doors, faucet handles, pump soap, etc. If you can wash your hands safely and properly inside the restroom, it’s still a good idea to use alcohol rub to disinfect your hands once you get outside the bathroom. Avoid touching your face unless your hands are clean.
— Ajay K. Sethi, associate professor, population health sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Especially the school closure part, which might explain why influenza disappeared as well,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, UW Health’s medical director for infection prevention.
Quoted: Nasia Safdar, an infectious disease expert with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said factors such as improved weather and the end of at-home schooling in some districts have likely contributed to a general trend of increased movement.
“I think there were things that helped people stay put in the beginning of this, which is that there was a lot of fear and uncertainty and the weather wasn’t great,” she said. “I’m sure people are experiencing some cabin fever despite their best intentions.”
Thomas Oliver, a health policy expert, also at UW-Madison, said the increased movement in Wisconsin and mixed messaging sent by the patchwork of rules from authorities at all levels is concerning.
“It was inevitable you would see slipping adherence to the recommended guidelines regardless, but now we have so many contradictory and competing guidelines,” he said.
Oguzhan Alagoz, an expert in infectious disease modeling at UW-Madison, said the pictures he saw after the court order of unmasked people standing close together inside bars is troubling and likely to lead to more cases.
Noted: Weeks passed without the expected surge of new patients. UW Health established two special units for people hospitalized with COVID-19, but no patients arrived. Staff waited.
“None of us have done this before,” said Ann Sheehy, a doctor there for 15 of her 46 years. “We had to create new processes.”
Sheehy helped build a large backup team of doctors and other clinic staff who don’t normally practice in the hospital but are certified to do so. They were offered special training and the chance to shadow hospital staff in preparation for COVID-19 duty.
In what could be another effect of more of us staying at home, UW Health’s Burn Center is seeing more home-related injuries.
“So during our time when we’re asked to be safer at home, maybe people haven’t been going out to eat, parents and children are at home, they’re not at school, so maybe it’s a result of that,” UW Health Burn Center Director Dr. Lee Faucher said.
But researchers like Malia Jones, an assistant scientist in health geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, say the impact of COVID-19 can’t always be traced to an urban-rural divide.Jones studies how infectious diseases spread. In Wisconsin, four rural counties have remained case-free, yet plenty of other rural counties have not.
Quoted: Nasia Safdar, an infectious disease expert with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and medical director of infection control at UW Health, said the study addresses an important question, but cannot eliminate the possibility that other activities during the same time period might have been the real cause of cases.
“They did a pretty careful assessment of traffic during the period of interest, but these challenges remain with these kinds of studies,” Safdar said. “It’s association, but not causation.”
Oguzhan Alagoz, an expert in infectious disease modeling at UW-Madison, said he thinks a slight bump in COVID-19 cases after the election may be attributable to in-person voting.
Dr. Ajay K. Sethi, an infectious disease epidemiologist and associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, cautioned that there is no evidence Gold and his co-investigators “used a scientific approach to test their hypothesis that ‘different exposure to vaccines between younger and older people may account for this different morbidity rate [in COVID-19].’”
But Dr. Jim Conway, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said readers “need to be cautious when people are trying to draw associations that don’t have a lot of biological plausibility.”
Richard J. Davidson, professor of psychology and neuroscientist at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has demonstrated that “when individuals engage in generous and altruistic behavior, they actually activate circuits in the brain that are key to fostering well-being.”
For years, people with irritable bowel syndrome symptoms were told the issues were related to stress, it was in their heads or they needed to exercise more, said Melissa Phillips, a clinical nutritionist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Health System’s Digestive Health Center.
Since the start of the pandemic, UW Health says it has rapidly expanded telemedicine capabilities.
