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Category: Experts Guide

‘We can try to develop vaccine, but I don’t know that we can get rid of it’: Like HIV and the flue, COVID-19 could become endemic

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Other staples of everyday life, especially the resumption of school, may differ widely in cities and towns across the country. Without data to measure the effect of different educational methods on the spread of the virus, the U.S. will soon embark on what amounts to “uncontrolled experiments,” said Tony Goldberg, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UW virologist and influenza expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka said that although he is confident COVID-19 will become endemic, he believes the lifestyle changes people have made should not become permanent.

“Once everyone gets vaccinated we should be able to go back to normal life,” he said, predicting that day might come “in three years, maybe four years.”

Unemployment Rates Drop In All 72 Counties In Wisconsin

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Tessa Conroy, an assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Agricultural and Applied Economics Department who specializes in regional economic development, said it’s encouraging to see unemployment improving across the state. However, she said the numbers show that the economy has not gotten back to normal for a lot of people in Wisconsin.

“Even though things are better, we’re still quite a ways from where we were before the pandemic hit,” Conroy said. “So if we were to compare to say a year ago, we have a ways to go in terms of improving things again.”

Sierra Club scrutinizes founder John Muir’s racist views; Wisconsin chapter reconsidering name

Wisconsin State Journal

While Muir spoke disparagingly of Indians, the greater problem is that he largely ignored them, said Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison. Robbins said Muir was “using the same playbook as everyone else was working from” at the time, but that the Sierra Club was founded on the premise of preserving “sacred spaces” devoid of the people who previously inhabited them.

UW economist doesn’t blame government regulations for economic slowdown

WisBusiness

UW-Madison economist Noah Williams said it would be inaccurate to blame government regulation for the economic slowdown that’s accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Economic activity started falling early in March, before there were any restrictions in place,” Williams said. “What the lockdowns essentially did was keep that activity at a very low level. Things deteriorated much more quickly than people expected.”

Low In The Sky: Catch Neowise Comet Before It Dims

Wisconsin Public Radio

The night sky is giving us many good reasons to look up this summer.

From Neowise, the recently-discovered comet that’s only viewable every few thousand years, to the annual Perseid meteor showers, there’s a lot to watch for in the evening and early morning skies, said Jim Lattis, director of the University of Wisconsin Space Place.

Lattis walks through the summer sky’s brightest objects, and gives tips for where and how to see them.

Who gets the final say? School reopening confusion arises in Milwaukee

Fox 6 Now

Confusion this week over whether Milwaukee’s private schools could start in-person education in the fall led several parents to ask FOX6: Who has the power to veto school plans during a pandemic?

“If you had asked that question a couple months ago, it would have been pretty clear,” University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Emeritus Dennis Dresang said.

Dresang’s research focuses on state, local, and federal government.

Race and the newsroom: What seven research studies say

Nieman Lab

Noted: Sue Robinson and Kathleen Bartzen Culver, journalism professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, use coverage of the proposed charter school as a case study to explore ethical obligations white reporters have when covering race. They conducted three focus groups and 39 in-depth interviews with 24 white reporters and 15 community leaders of color. They also analyzed more than 1,000 news stories and social media posts about racial disparities in educational achievement in Madison from 2011 to 2015.

The ‘Half-Campus’ Model: Some colleges invite a fraction of their students to live on campus this fall. But is that approach truly safer? And who gets to be on campus?

Inside Higher Ed

Quoted: The effort to de-densify campus could have a public health benefit if the extra space is used to spread people out across classrooms and residence halls, said Craig Roberts, an epidemiologist emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a member of the American College Health Association’s COVID-19 task force.

“If the reduction is being done solely for budget reasons, however,” he said, such as to “keep class sizes the same but have fewer classes with fewer instructors, then I don’t think it’s going to make much difference.”

Women’s suffrage exhibition at DeForest Area Historical Society

DeForest Times-Tribune

Noted: Before that, on Thursday, Aug. 6, there will be a virtual program entitled “Black Male Suffrage in Early Wisconsin,” presented by Dr. Christy Clark Pujara, assistant professor of history, Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It will tell the story of Ezekiel Gillespie, a Black Milwaukee resident, who asked that his name be added to the list of eligible voters on Oct. 31, 1865.

The new language of vote suppression

Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

Quoted: Such practices have been justified by the third key component of the vote suppression narrative: the claim of widespread voter fraud. This claim, too, is fallacious, as many voting experts will attest. As Kenneth R. Mayer, a voting expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison declared, “The continued insistence that there are material levels of intentional voter fraud is itself a form of fraud.”

Wisconsin’s controversial new crime victim bill of rights could fall short without more funding from state

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Michele LaVigne, a recently retired University of Wisconsin-Madison clinical law professor and director of the Public Defender Project, said implementing the new rules — which require prosecutors to include crime victims in more steps of a prosecution — could slow an already sluggish process.

“All court systems have shut down basically and there is a backlog from hell building up,” LaVigne said, referring to the four months courts have been largely closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

To fight climate change, Democrats want to close the ‘digital divide’

Grist

Quoted:

The call for hardening our internet infrastructure is especially salient to Paul Barford, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 2018, Barford and two colleagues published a study highlighting the vulnerability of America’s fiber cables to sea level rise, and he’s currently investigating how wildfires threaten mobile networks. In both cases, he says, it’s clear that the telecommunications infrastructure deployed today was designed with historical extreme conditions in mind — and that has to change.

“We’re living in a world of climate change,” he said. “And if the intention is to make this new infrastructure that will serve the population for many years to come, then it is simply not feasible to deploy it without considering the potential effects of climate change, which include, of course, rising seas, severe weather, floods, and wildfires.”

Voter registrations show glimmer of hope for Donald Trump in Wisconsin

Wisconsin State Journal

“Trump is in trouble in Wisconsin and nationally, that’s what the polls are showing,” said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden. “But the fact that the registration is more balanced than that should give Republicans hope and should encourage the Democrats to keep working to get their voters on the registration rolls.”

COVID-19 posing difficult choices for Wisconsin’s immigrant workers

Wisconsin State Journal

Shiva Bidar, UW Health chief diversity officer and a Madison City Council member, confirmed that Wisconsin residents can come to their health facilities and receive care, no questions asked. “We’ll make sure they go where they need care and nobody’s asking them to pay up front for anything,” Bidar said. “We will figure out on the back end what we need to do to make sure that their bills are covered.”

Latest Badger Shield design draws global attention

Wisconsin State Journal

“It’s for cases where people want to be able to see faces,” said Lennon Rodgers, director of the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It could be a teacher talking to their students, seeing smiles, things like this that are important, some people say, for developmental reasons.”

Masks now required for Wisconsin prison staff and all state workers as Capitol stays closed to the public

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Dr. Nasia Safdar, director of infection prevention and control for UW Health, said masks cannot single-handedly prevent coronavirus spread but are an effective intervention.

“If someone was wearing a mask, it would likely reduce the number of people they would infect,” she said.

Republican, Democratic state conventions display differing attitudes toward COVID-19

Wisconsin State Journal

“I think it still presents a substantial risk,” said Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious disease expert at UW-Madison. “Even though we’re a state that has relatively low rates certainly compared to the South and Southwest, the bringing together of people to a lot of different areas is really where you run the risk of introduction and then re-introduction of virus into particular communities.”

Facing a world clamoring for help with COVID-19, scientists are changing how they work

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, worries there is so much pressure to produce positive results that conditions are ripe for cutting corners. She notes, for example, that in an emergency where people are suffering, there can be resistance to having control groups that don’t get an experimental treatment in a study.

“But it doesn’t work scientifically,” Ossorio said. “It doesn’t produce good enough data that you can actually have any confidence that the test intervention is safe or effective.”

“We have this real brick and mortar view of how clinical research had to happen, and I think COVID has really challenged that,” said Betsy Nugent, the director of clinical trials development for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and UW Health.

Song Gao, an assistant professor of geographic information science at UW-Madison, was among the first to study and map how people’s mobility changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, Buttenheim and Malia Jones, an epidemiologist at UW-Madison, launched “Dear Pandemic,” a social media group that communicates the latest COVID-19 research.

“The world is just going to be different,” Jones said, “Getting to the point where there’s hopefully a vaccine that’s effective is going to take enough time that I think science will change.”

Farmers’ milk prices rising, easing dairy farm losses, but for how long?

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “The sharp drop in May was the result of the COVID-19 virus shutting down schools, universities, restaurants and food-service which caused a big drop in the sales of milk, cheese and butter,” Bob Cropp, a University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension professor emeritus, wrote in a recent column.

Which mask is best? UW engineering professor studies how droplets escape from face coverings

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin-Madison engineer Scott Sanders usually spends his time figuring out how gases and particles behave in combustion engines.

But Sanders has turned his expertise to determining how a different type of particle, one that has sickened millions around the world, moves from human mouths covered with masks.

How can I get my child to wear a mask? If I’m sick with COVID, how long do I need to quarantine? Experts answer your questions

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “A mask that is not covering the nose will not stop a person infected with SARS-CoV-2 from contaminating the air in front of them when they exhale. Similarly, a mask covering only the mouth will fail to prevent an uninfected person from inhaling contaminated air. Since it does not take a lot of virus particles to cause infection, a partially worn mask may not be effective enough. This reminds me of when I see people wearing a bicycle helmet without buckling the strap or wearing it so loosely that it doesn’t cover the front of their head. The intention might be there, but there is a higher risk of head injury following an accident if the helmet is unable to do what it is designed to do.”

— Ajay Sethi, PhD, MHS, associate professor, Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nearly 800 people have died from COVID-19 in Wisconsin. Here’s what we are learning so far.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Halfway through 2020, 786 people in Wisconsin died prematurely, unexpectedly, and separated from family,” said Ajay Sethi, associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “COVID-19 will be a leading cause of death in Wisconsin for 2020. We have not had a new leading cause of death in Wisconsin or the U.S. since HIV/AIDS.”

Public health officials shut down indoor service for bars in Madison following surge of cases

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

At risk is University of Wisconsin-Madison’s plan to welcome students back to campus this fall. Jeff Pothof, University of Wisconsin Health chief quality and safety officer, said if local health officials don’t try to stop the spread of the virus in Dane County, in-person instruction could be called off. “If we’re unable to get on top of this current spike and it continues to accelerate, we may be in a position where it won’t make sense to be holding in-person classes,” he said. “It becomes a risk that most of us shouldn’t be taking with our children.”

Both the city and UW-Madison have similar orders in place to ensure people are distancing properly, which will be especially important come late August when the university’s 30,000 students return to campus. “We have been and will be working to ensure people are abiding by the campus order when they are on campus property,” Marc Lovicott of UW-Madison’s Police Department, said. “We have and will issue citations for blatant and/or multiple violations.”

Report: Wisconsin has student-to-teacher racial, ethnic gap

Associated Press

“It is important for white children to see people of color as being knowledgeable and authoritative,” said Gloria Ladson-Billings, a teacher educator who most recently was on the faculty at UW-Madison. “The stuff we are seeing happening in our streets today is, I think, a direct result of young white people saying, ‘I was never really taught to value these people’s lives.’”

For Milwaukee Dads, Help Figuring Out Fatherhood

U.S. News and World Report

Quoted: It’s not unusual for men to struggle after the birth of a child, says Tova Walsh, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied fathers and parent-child relationships. There are financial pressures, expectations to try to meet and lifestyle adjustments to make.

In the history of family services, fathers have been overlooked and neglected, Walsh says, with sometimes clinical consequences. “Paternal depression is underrecognized,” she says.

‘This is shocking to me’: A voter ID case that could rattle Wisconsin’s fall election has been on hold for more than 3 years

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Robert Yablon, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who specializes in election law, called the case “a true outlier.”

“Seventh Circuit cases rarely sit for even one year after oral argument, much less three,” he said by email.

“The judges’ internal deliberations are confidential, so it’s impossible to know for sure what’s happening behind the scenes. The judges may have disagreements that they’re truly struggling to resolve. It’s also conceivable that they’re waiting to see if Wisconsin law changes in ways that moot the appeal or hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court eventually decides another voting-related case that offers further guidance on the relevant legal standards.”

In-person election, protests, bars opening. None appear to have spiked COVID cases. Experts hope public precautions keep spread in check

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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.”

Local experts weigh in on black communities disproportionate share of COVID-19 deaths

WKOW-TV 27

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.

Opinion: Black men and boys are especially vulnerable to mental health challenges because of coronavirus and police violence

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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.

First-of-its-kind drive-thru veterinary clinic planned for Sun Prairie

Wisconsin State Journal

Ruthanne Chun, a clinical professor in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and director of the UW Veterinary Care hospital and clinic, said she and 30 or 40 colleagues she contacted via a veterinary medical Listserv had never heard of the drive-thru concept before, excepting the switch during the pandemic to curbside service.

Wisconsin’s ice cream makers rely on pints, carryout and new flavors as an unusual summer begins

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: A three-day short course in ice cream making has been taught for decades at the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Dairy Science in Madison. Students travel from as far away as Asia, often with a goal to make ice cream with indigenous ingredients and flavors.

“Certain ingredients behave differently when added to ice cream,” explains Scott Rankin, who heads the UW program. “Alcoholic beverages are one example. You can’t just add them” without consequences.

Protests prompting concern about new outbreaks of coronavirus

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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.

Protests defy coronavirus guidelines, but health experts say engagement is ‘essential.’ Here’s how protesters and police can reduce risk.

Appleton Post Crescent

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.

Tom Still: Even with new scientific paths, broad vaccine availability still a year or more away

Wisconsin State Journal

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.

Unpaid unemployment claims top 728,000 as state Senate holds hearings on backlog

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Noah Williams said the economic downturn would likely be sustained. He said lawmakers should consider ways to bring people back to work, such as by offering cash bonuses to those who quickly find jobs and are taken off the unemployment rolls.

April’s 14% unemployment rate is likely an underestimate, Williams said. It could be closer to 18%.

“We’re seeing very high levels of unemployment,” he said. “It doesn’t seem out of line with national averages, although other states have certainly done better.

As gyms reopen, are members ready to return?

Wisconsin State Journal

The irony is that many people already pay for something they don’t use, said Justin Sydnor, a professor of risk and insurance at UW-Madison who has studied wellness incentives. “The average gym membership is really underutilized,” Sydnor said. “A high share of people who pay for gym memberships use them barely at all.”

I’m heading out into this newly opened Wisconsin. What do I need to know? Our experts are here to help. John Diedrich, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Publi

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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.

After April’s election difficulties, would a vote-at-home system make more sense for Wisconsin?

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “If the state wanted to really do a vote-by-mail system like those five states out West do, it would require lots of printing and postage costs upfront, millions of dollars,” said Barry Burden, UW-Madison political science professor. “Because all those states automatically send ballots to all their registered voters. That would be about 3.3 million ballots in Wisconsin.”

Face masks becoming a political symbol of the COVID-19 era

Wisconsin State Journal

Research on the effectiveness of wearing face masks is limited, but the idea is that wearing a mask helps reduce the transmission of the virus from the wearer to people in proximity through talking, coughing or sneezing. Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said cloth masks can achieve that quite well.