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Category: UW Experts in the News

Department Of Health Services: ‘We’re On The Path To A 4th Surge’

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: “Breakthrough infections started out at a very low rate. But now with the delta variant and the higher ease of transmissibility, those breakthrough infections are growing,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, director of infection control at UW Hospital and Clinics and faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “So, the mask then will be this extra layer of protection in addition to the vaccine. Of course, it’s crucial for unvaccinated people (to mask up) because they don’t have that layer of protection from the vaccine.”

What You Need To Know About The End Of The Federal Eviction Moratorium

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

“There’s no way to sugarcoat it, it’s going to be bad,” said Kurt Paulsen, University of Wisconsin-Madison urban planning professor. He explained that the eviction moratorium barred landlords from evicting tenants who were unable to pay their rent during the pandemic, but that renters are still ultimately on the hook for all the rent they missed when the moratorium expires.

“Thousands and thousands of renters have been unable to pay the rent because of unemployment or COVID-related financial hardships, and eventually the rent comes due,” Paulsen said.

State health officials encourage local leaders to follow CDC guidelines on masking

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: The CDC based their recommendation on new evidence about the delta variant. Ajay Sethi, associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said he would classify the latest science as “a bit of a game-changer.”

“We didn’t know this was going to be the case until we discovered that people who are vaccinated and get a breakthrough infection can potentially spread that to other people and that wasn’t the case before delta,” Sethi said.

Ron Johnson criticizes new CDC guidance, questions effectiveness of masks despite research showing they reduce COVID spread

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Public health officials do not know how long the immune system protects itself after an infection with COVID-19 and encourage all eligible people to get the vaccine.

“The duration of that protection is unknown,” said Ajay Sethi, associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “The science is already showing that people who have had the vaccine have better responses to the (delta) variant than people who had past infection.”

The Unraveling of the Trump Era

Posted on
The Atlantic

Noted: Trump’s agencies wrote fewer rules than past administrations, including other Republican ones, says Susan Yackee, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who focuses on rule-making. Although many controversial regulations wind up in court, agencies typically win those cases, she told me. Here, too, the Trump administration was an outlier: It lost a lot.

COVID-19 spread from vaccinated to unvaccinated may already be happening in Dane County

Posted on
WKOW-TV 27

A day after the CDC announced new mask guidance based on new research that shows infected, vaccinated people could spread the Delta variant of the coronavirus to unvaccinated people, researchers at UW-Madison say that type of spread is likely happening here, too. Professors Dave and Shelby O’Connor say that the new research shows vaccinated people who experience a breakthrough infection of the Delta variant carry high loads of virus deep within their noses.

What’s The True Impact Of Enhanced Federal Unemployment Aid? A Labor Economist Weighs In

Posted on
WORT FM

While the debate over enhanced federal unemployment aid in Wisconsin has been settled for now, the broader, national discussion on the issue continues.

At least 26 states have cut their ties with the program. Business owners and interest groups argue that ending the additional aid is the best way to address difficulties in hiring new workers.

For more on the debate, WORT producer Jonah Chester spoke with Laura Dresser, a labor economist at UW-Madison.

Dairy market reports show optimism, but uncertainty, for higher prices, slowing production

Posted on
Wisconsin State Farmer

Industry experts Mark Stephenson and Bob Cropp say they see optimism in price and supply for the coming months, according to the latest episode of the Dairy Markets and Policy podcast.

Cropp, professor emeritus of UW-Madison’s Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, said cold storage reports bring both bad and good news to dairy farmers: American cheese stocks are slowly decreasing at 2% this month, but butter stocks have gone up 14% in the same timeframe. Stephenson, director of the Center for Dairy Profitability, said cheese stocks will continue to see rising price support.

Tanzania’s Dilemma: It’s Not So Easy To Go From Vaccine Denier To Vaccine Embracer

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: The authority of the minister and her deputies in advocating vaccination doesn’t guarantee a new national attitude, says Aikande Kwayu, honorary research fellow specializing in political governance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is based in Tanzania.

“Their actions and statements during the last administration influenced a lot of conspiracies, lies and also denial about the pandemic,” says Kwayu.

A wolf hunt blew past its kill quota in February. Another hunt is coming this fall.

Posted on
The Washington Post

Quoted: Lead author Adrian Treves, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, argues that without a more precise number the hunt quota should be set as low as is possible.

“A quota of one would comply with the statute [mandating a hunt] and acknowledge that we have no clue how successfully the wolves reproduced this year,” Treves said. “Because the hunt happened during the mating season, we would need good data on how many packs produced pups, and that is data we do not have.”

Forget Critical Race Theory in the Classroom. Kids Are Learning About Race on TikTok.

Posted on
EdSurge

Quoted: “If you look at the language of some of these bills, they’re really pretty broad,” says Diana Hess, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s school of education. “There’s a lot of things that are in the language that would make it really hard to teach civic education.”

CDC: Mask Up In Some Situations Even If Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: “The virus multiplies exponentially so 10 today could be 100 tomorrow,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, director of infection control at UW Hospital and Clinics and faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Safdar urged people to take precautions like mask wearing and getting vaccinated.

“All around us, we are surrounded by high transmission, and it’s just a matter of time before we are right in there with the rest of the country,” she said.

‘There is a real cost’: As Covid shows, barring bedside visitors from ICU deprives patients of the best care

Posted on
STAT

Quoted: Doctors and researchers who share Ciappa’s hope are worried about how much progress the movement lost during the last year and a half. “It took time to get those family-centered policies into the fabric of hospitals,” said Traci Snedden, a career critical care nurse and assistant professor of nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Will Covid give clinicians permission to pull back again, or will it propel us forward like, ‘I can’t believe we went without family at the bedside’?”

Decision on former Wauwatosa cop Joseph Mensah’s 2016 shooting to come Wednesday. Here’s what we know about the proceeding.

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: The law Motley is seeking to use — Wisconsin Statute 968.02 — is similar to a John Doe proceeding, but is technically not the same thing, according to Keith Findley, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Findley said the law is essentially used as a check on the court system. Findley also said Statute 968.02 means a judge has more discretion when it comes to filing charges. Under the statute, a judge “may” file charges if they find probable cause.

Sports psychologist encourages fans to support Biles’ decision

Posted on
WKOW-TV 27

With several professional athletes taking a break to place their mental health as a priority, UW Health’s Distinguished Sports Pscyhologist Dr. Shilagh Mirgain encourages fans and family to remain supportive. “She’s human. She’s really showing that the weight of that pressure can really undermine people’s performance. And she really did what was best for her, prioritizing her mental health by pulling out of this competition,” explained Dr. Mirgain.

What’s blood flow restriction training and why are Olympic athletes using it?

Posted on
Today

Quoted: “It’s almost like a personal tourniquet system. So you have a cuff that’s applied to your arm or leg that significantly reduces blood flow,” Marc Sherry, a physical therapist and manager of the UW Health Sports Rehabilitation Department in Madison, Wisconsin, told TODAY. “The basic premise is that it’s inflated to a pressure that prevents the blood from coming out of your arm but doesn’t prevent the blood from going into your arm.”

‘An abomination’: the story of the massacre that killed 216 wolves

Posted on
The Guardian

Quoted: Adrian Treves, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied wolf-hound conflicts, found that neighboring Michigan, which has stricter hounding regulations, has seen far fewer dogs injured or killed by wolves. Lighter regulation in Wisconsin means more dogs in the woods, Treves said, which leads to more conflict. “Houndsmen prefer to hunt in a place that lets them do what they want to do.”

A federal eviction moratorium ends July 31. Here’s what you need to know about rental assistance and more.

Posted on
Green Bay Press Gazette

Quoted: Landlords have a lot more options available to them than eviction, Madison-based rental housing lawyer and University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Mitch said. Mitch said property owners can negotiate rather than file evictions that will go permanently on the tenant’s record.

“I know that eviction isn’t the only tool in your toolbox when renters don’t pay, and I wish that property owners would realize that they have other tools such as working out agreements on early move-outs, working on payment plans or working together to get government assistance,” Mitch said.

Intense heat raises the risk of violence in American prisons

Posted on
The Economist

Noted: Another, and probably underestimated, factor may be the weather. Mississippi summers usually see average temperatures rise above 80℉ (26.7℃), a threshold at which the likelihood of violence in prisons increases.

That is the finding of a working paper by Anita Mukherjee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Nicholas Sanders of Cornell University. The authors matched county-level weather variations across Mississippi with violent incidents reported in the state’s 36 prisons and jails between 2004 and 2010. Using these data, they built a statistical model that controlled for the time of year that the violence took place, the type of institution and other factors. They calculated that on days with average temperatures of 80℉ or higher the chances of violence increased by 20%. The hot weather leads to an average of 44 additional incidents of severe violence—those that result in serious injury or death—each year,

Kathleen Gallagher: What’s standing in the way of growing Wisconsin’s wine industry?

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “You used to have to use McKinsey or another specialized consultant, but with the Internet and data science you can do this at a fraction of the cost and make it very easy for the farmers themselves,” said Tom Erickson, Founding Director of the University of Wisconsin’s School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences.

Milwaukee considers updating building codes in the wake of Surfside collapse. Should other Wisconsin cities and the state do the same?

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Annual inspections might offer peace of mind, but building professionals said the expenses would be astronomical. Besides, it’s when the building is being constructed that inspectors have the most critical safety checklist to ensure its longevity, said Steven Cramer, vice provost for instructional continuity & academic affairs and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We have a great set of building codes in Wisconsin, but the greatest scrutiny occurs at the time of construction or remodel when building permits are required and inspections occur,” Cramer wrote by email.

Carbon-capture pipelines offer climate aid; activists wary

Posted on
Associated Press

Quoted: “These early plants are relatively easy and that’s a good place to start,” said Greg Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in the development of climate-friendly energy technology. “As that gets shown and proven, you get some transportation networks, then it gets easier to do the harder stuff later.”

Small Farms Vanish Every Day in America’s Dairyland: “There Ain’t No Future In Dairy”

Posted on
Mother Jones

Quoted: Mark Stephenson, the director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the industry definitely has a lot of challenges but is nowhere near extinction.

“We’ve produced record amounts of milk in the last year or two. It’s being consumed. Most of it domestically, but increasingly with exports,” said Stephenson.

Wisconsin Lawmaker Proposes Lifetime Restraining Orders To Protect Sexual Assault Survivors

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Ryan Poe-Gavlinski is clinical director of the Victims of Crimes Act Restraining Order Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She said creating a lifetime protective order would put survivors of assault “in the driver’s seat.”

“If someone has committed sexual assault and that’s been determined, either at the (civil) restraining order level or through a criminal court, there’s no reason that that perpetrator needs to have contact with that victim going forward,” Poe-Gavlinksi said.

How Olympians Are Fighting to Put Athletes’ Mental Health First

Posted on
Time

“Five years ago, mental health among elite athletes was not a very often-discussed topic,” says Dr. Claudia Reardon, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin. If there was any focus on athletes’ mental health, it centered around performance and ways to optimize results on the field. “Most of the emphasis when it came to mental health was around sports psychology and performance, and offering resources to help you perform at your highest level,” says Ross. “Occasionally in the health history [questionnaire] there might be some questions about mental health but they were sort of hidden, and weren’t prominent.”

Bill O’Reilly accuser’s appearance on ‘The View’ stopped by order

Posted on
AP

That’s a potential conflict of interest, raising the question of whether Falzone’s experience with Fox would affect her independence, said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She said it would be wrong to suggest Falzone can’t write about these issues, but it’s questionable for her to write about them when it concerns Fox.

Opinion: Legislation would make obesity medications more widely available and help reduce inequities in care

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Dr. Luke Funk is an associate professor of surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Srividya Kidambi is an associate professor and chief in the Division of Endocrinology and Molecular Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin/Froedtert Hospital. Dr. Christopher Weber is an obesity medicine specialist practicing in Milwaukee.

Small farms vanish every day in America’s dairyland: ‘There ain’t no future in dairy’

Posted on
The Guardian

Mark Stephenson, the director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the industry definitely has a lot of challenges but is nowhere near extinction.“We’ve produced record amounts of milk in the last year or two. It’s being consumed. Most of it domestically, but increasingly with exports,” said Stephenson.

Alliant Energy touts progress toward climate goals, pledges to plant 1 million trees

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

But the results depend on details, such as the type of trees, where they’re planted and how they’re managed, said David Mladenoff, a professor of conservation, forest and wildlife ecology at UW-Madison, who cautions that such efforts are often public relations “gimmicks” that divert attention from more meaningful efforts to combat climate change. “If you add something, you are taking away something else,” Mladenoff said. “Nearly all open, noncultivated (areas) have habitat, water quality or other values.”

How the new, expanded federal child tax credit will work

Posted on
Wisconsin Examiner

Quoted: “This is just a stunning change in the American social policy context,” says Tim Smeeding, a professor of public affairs and economics with the LaFollette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an advocate for the policy.

Some form of universal child allowance benefit is found in 17 affluent countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

“They allow parents who don’t have enough money to do things for their kids,” he adds. “It says kids are important.”

Families Embrace Their A, B, CTCs As Child Tax Credit Expands To Monthly Payouts

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: “It’s transformative,” said Tim Smeeding, a professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s a recognition that kids are expensive, and that we as a society have an obligation and an interest in having them grow up well, and do well.”

Smeeding noted that it’s particularly remarkable for including families who aren’t typically reached by the Earned Income Tax Credit, like the children of immigrant parents and “grandfamilies” — families where kids live with grandparents at least half of the year, and for whom grandparents provide at least half of the support. Unlike the Earned Income Tax Credit, which families receive as a credit when they file taxes each year, families can be eligible for the child tax credit even if they don’t make enough to file taxes.