According to Public Health Madison & Dane County, UW students and staff made up 38% of cases last week. Public Health said that number was 65% the previous week.
Chief Quality Officer Dr. Jeff Pothof says UW Health is still able to manage the number of patients.
Another saliva LAMP test is being tested by David O’Connor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their technique bears many similarities to the Columbia test, including a color-based readout, but takes slightly longer and involves a couple of extra steps. Early trials of the test on volunteers in Wisconsin have gone well, Dr. O’Connor said, and one school district in Illinois is using the test to screen about 1,400 students and teachers on a weekly basis.
With the UW Board of Regents, we imposed a mask-wearing mandate on campus, and our students are taking it seriously. We’ve seen them — they’re even wearing masks walking down the street or riding their bikes. Our university leadership, faculty and staff also are modeling this important behavior.
The Dane County Board urged UW-Madison to move all classes online and empty out dorms, the latest call from local officials for the university to take more drastic action to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Providence is among colleges taking drastic steps to try to slow the spread of Covid-19, essentially pressing pause to salvage the rest of their fall term for face-to-face instruction and campus activities. The University of Arizona urged students to shelter in place for two weeks, while the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Colorado Boulder quarantined thousands of students and moved classes online for weeks, too.
The innovation came after a study by two University of Wisconsin-Madison mechanical engineering professors revealed that various existing masks and face shields allow tiny particles to escape, both through the material and at the edges. If the wearer is infected with the novel coronavirus, that means the virus could travel from the wearer’s mouth or nose and infect those around them.
The goal of the study is to gather data that will allow his team to design and implement a new telehealth model in nursing homes.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison had more than 2,800 confirmed student cases as of Friday. At Kansas State University, more than 2,200 students have been placed in quarantine or isolation. The University of Missouri has recorded more than 1,500 confirmed cases among students since classes started.
“It’s bad,” said Ajay Sethi, a public health professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and it’s likely to get worse.
Faculty members from at least two universities have held no-confidence votes in recent weeks against their top leaders, in part over reopening decisions. Government leaders want the University of Wisconsin-Madison to send its students home. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, alarmed by what he sees as draconian rules on college campuses, said he is drawing up a “bill of rights” for college students.
In Wednesday’s newsletter, we mentioned a spat between the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin and the executive of the surrounding Dane County. Over the past week, there have been an average of 2,018 cases per day in Wisconsin, an increase of 112 percent from the average two weeks earlier, according to a Times tracker.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison lifted quarantine orders for two of its largest dorms on Wednesday, on a day when the state added 56 hospitalizations from COVID-19 complications to its record total.
Just two weeks after going remote because of a COVID-19 spike, the University of Wisconsin Madison is resuming in-person activities, despite what Gov. Tony Evers described as a “near-exponential” increase in coronavirus cases in the state.
“We are of course sad that we can not get together because it’s a great event and we’ve had a great time with the 5K every year,” said co-president Andreas Kyrvasilis, “but on the plus side, it’s giving us the possibility to engage people all over the country.”
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on campus have led UW-Madison to establish a partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Young people account for a large share of new cases in many states. Cases in Wisconsin among 18- to 24-year-olds spiked 220% between the week of Aug. 23 and Sept. 6 while ticking up 30% among those age 65 and older. The University of Wisconsin has reported 1,945 cases since students returned to campus last month.
In the past, Governor Tony Evers has supported UW students returning to campus, but he’s wary about what having football games back could mean for the state’s already high COVID-19 numbers.
Although COVID-19 cases have continued to spike in Madison and Dane County, public health officials say a rising number of cases are not connected to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank says the campus will begin to reopen Saturday following a two-week lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 among undergraduate students.
Though it may seem counterintuitive, large, formal settings are often safer than small, informal ones, because they typically require people to follow stringent rules to minimize risk, said Dr. Arwady.
At school, for instance, “even though the kids are in the classroom, their activities are very much prescribed,” said Dr. Ellen Wald, an infectious disease pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. They are typically required to wear masks and sit at desks spaced six feet apart.
Shannon Abolins and her roommate rushed to the closest Walgreens the night of September 9. They had heard rumors that their dorm building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison would be going into a two-week quarantine in just a few hours.
Not every institution is struggling. State flagship schools have been doing particularly well: The University of Wisconsin-Madison, for example, has its second-largest freshman class in school history.
University of Wisconsin-Madison football players are making their way back to the field after the football program took a two-week break due to a spike in COVID-19 cases. And as they return, the start of a 2020 fall football season looks more real than ever.
But young people have historically had the lowest turnout among any age group. And now with a growing list of temporary shutdowns at University of Wisconsin System campuses and general uncertainty caused by COVID-19 outbreaks, some college students are facing a new set of challenges in the final stretch of the 2020 campaign.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said the campus will begin to reopen Saturday following a two-week lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 among undergraduate students.
UW-Madison lifted the quarantine on two of its residence halls following the rapid spread of COVID-19 among students.
According to an email sent to students Wednesday morning, some courses will resume in-person or hybrid learning Saturday. The email said students enrolled in those courses will be contacted by their instructors no later than Friday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is slowly phasing back to in-person classes and activities after two weeks of online learning and quarantines in two residence halls.
Lennon Rodgers, director of the UW-Madison College of Engineering’s Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab, said that two weeks after UW Health asked him in early March if he could make 1,000 face shields, companies from around the country were contacting the university to use its design. “You think elastic is easy to get, or foam; it is, if you want to make 1,000 or even 10,000 (face shields),” he said. “But when you’re talking millions, it’s truckloads upon truckloads of material.”
UW-Madison lifted quarantine orders for two of its largest dorms on Wednesday and will soon phase in some face-to-face classes, the first easing of restrictions since COVID-19 cases spiked on campus about two weeks ago.
Dane County Executive Joe Parisi and University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank each think the other should do more to curb the spread of COVID-19 in Madison.
In Madison, Wis., Dane County Executive Joe Parisi has repeatedly criticized University of Wisconsin officials who decided to bring students back to campus despite the high risk of new infections.
Evers announced Tuesday the new mask mandate — along with his third public health emergency — in an effort to control the spread of COVID-19. Positive cases had begun to drop after Evers’ first mask mandate took effect in July but have been rising, primarily among 18- to 24-year-olds, since students returned to college campuses.
University of Wisconsin Health is working to improve diversity in clinical trials by including a diverse trial population in a series of clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Dane County is again asking the University of Wisconsin-Madison to move classes online for the rest of the semester and send students living in residence halls home to curtail a spike in new coronavirus infections.
As we look for clues, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is one to watch. Desperate to contain the virus, the school this month mandated that residents of two dormitories and 22 Greek houses quarantine for two weeks. “I literally felt like I was being arrested,” one student told a TV reporter.
Within weeks of opening, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University reverted to online instruction and sent students home because of outbreaks of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Arizona have urged students to hunker down and shifted classes online, for at least a few weeks, to try to stem the virus’s spread.
The research looks at whether commonly used oral and nasal antiseptic can help prevent coronavirus infections. Now they are calling on any health care worker nationwide to participate.
While the sharp increase in cases can partially be attributed to students testing positive at college campuses, it’s unlikely the only factor. As of Friday, the University of Wisconsin Madison – the state’s flagship public university – reported 2,511 new cases on campus, just since the fall semester started last week.
Tiffany Green, an assistant professor in the Departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has pointed out that physical distancing is difficult to achieve in some essential occupations and while using public transport.
The feature on Madison.com “10 things we’ve learned about COVID-19 in less than a year” is an excellent summary of what we’ve learned “about” COVID-19. But what have we learned “from” COVID-19 about ourselves and our systems?
Eight Wisconsin cities that are home to University of Wisconsin System schools made the New York Times’ list of metro areas with the fastest growing COVID-19 cases this week.
UW-Madison students living in 22 quarantined Greek houses say uncertainty about the future has made them consider taking drastic measures.
UW-Madison is a big part of the community, but in a place like Whitewater, the university is almost as big as the city itself.
That’s why UW-Whitewater is encouraging its students to take the pandemic, and their impact on it, seriously.
Eight Wisconsin metro areas have landed on the New York Times’ list of places across the country where new cases of COVID-19 are rising the fastest.
La Crosse is number one on the New York Times’ list, which was updated Thursday afternoon. In third is Whitewater, and the Oshkosh-Neenah area is in eighth. Stevens Point, Appleton, Platteville, Madison and Green Bay take up the 15th through 19th spots of the list, respectively.
With the exception of Appleton, all the Wisconsin cities on the list are home to a University of Wisconsin System campus.
Noted: The group will be co-chaired by inaugural members Dr. Tiffany Green, assistant professor in the Departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Alia Stevenson, Chief Programs Officer with the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness.
“The Black Maternal & Child Health Alliance is comprised of Black women serving in important roles in health care, our community, and as decision-makers and knowledge experts. Our highest priority is to ensure that the health and wellbeing of Black mothers remains front and center,” says Co-Chairs Green and Stevenson in a statement. “As the Alliance moves forward, we are pleased to join the Dane County Health Council as we work together to advance the health of Black mothers, babies and their families in this county.”
Dane County confirmed 210 new coronavirus cases this morning, as yesterday’s Data Snapshot from Public Health Madison Dane County (PHMDC) reported 72 percent of all new cases the September 1-14 were from UW students and staff. Today’s new cases bring the total for the county to 8,461 as of this morning. There are 6,548 recovered cases while 1,872 are currently active. This brings the percentage of active cases to 22 percent.
Noted: Just over three-quarters of those recent cases were found in University of Wisconsin-Madison students and staff, with students making up the vast majority, 1,808 to 10 for the UW staff, PHMDC data notes indicate. Nearly 1,400 of the total cases were linked to college-age housing clusters, such as forms, apartment complexes with 10 or more cases, and fraternities and sororities.
The 21-member group, announced Thursday, is led by Dr. Tiffany Green, a UW-Madison obstetrician-gynecologist, and Alia Stevenson, chief programs officer with the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness.
In Madison, Wis., where the denizens of the state capital ordinarily coexist happily with the University of Wisconsin, local politicians and public health officials were unsparing in their assessments of the season’s potential consequences. They worried less about matters like testing access and more over how football could lead to new outbreaks; local health officials said Wednesday that 42 people directly tied to Wisconsin’s football program had tested positive for the virus in recent months.
Barely a week after the fall 2020 semester kicked off on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus with in-person instruction, new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sept. 10 surged well past previous single-day records in Dane County, home to the university, the state capital and the second largest metro area in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin is in the red zone for cases, the ninth highest rate in the country, and the yellow zone for test positivity, both of which have increased over the last week, per the task force.
The task force expresses particular concern with cases in Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin, which, it says, “reported more than 1,400 cases last week, a greater than 200% increase.
“The task force repeated its recommendations to institutions of higher learning.
A day after the Big Ten announced fall football will be returning, some businesses near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus are expressing mixed reactions.
Ajay Sethi, a UW Madison associate professor in population sciences who works on the dashboard, said while universities do not have to report the information, they know it is important to do so.“Dashboards are common, and I think transparency is paramount right now during our pandemic,” he said.
Even though not every University of Wisconsin-Madison student has been tested for COVID-19, at least seven percent of the entire student body has already tested positive for the virus, new Dane Co. numbers show.
Public Health Madison & Dane County (PHMDC) says that contact tracing found more than 88 percent of University of Wisconsin Madison students that test positive for COVID-19 are showing symptoms associated with the virus.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison student has been hospitalized with COVID-19 complications, the university announced Wednesday.
Health officials in Madison and Dane County are urging fans not to gather to watch football games when the University of Wisconsin Badgers begin their season next month.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is also part of the Big Ten and had a sharp uptick in cases last week, local health officials ordered all Greek organizations with one or more cases among their live-in members to quarantine. Several states, including Kansas, Colorado and Michigan, have tracked coronavirus clusters to fraternities and sororities.
