Frederica Freyberg:

Delta-fueled rising COVID numbers across Wisconsin are not just a concern for university campuses. The surge touches the nerves of students of all ages, their families and school staff as the academic year gets underway. For an update on new precautions and concerns, we turn to Dr. Nasia Safdar, a faculty member in the Division of Infectious Disease within the Department of Medicine at UW-Madison. Doctor, thanks very much for being here.

Nasia Safdar:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Some 500 pediatricians across the state signed a letter to schools and parents about safe practices as students return saying we need to mask, distance and get vaccinated if eligible. What happens if we don’t take those measures?

Nasia Safdar:

I think if we have any hope of being able to carry out the critical activity of educating our children, we have to follow all of these recommended precautions. One is not a substitute for the other. They’re all a suite of solutions. If you follow them all faithfully as close to 100% as we can get, then we have a reasonable chance of being able to offer this generation the education that they deserve. If we don’t, then I think we’ll be able to see the consequences that we see in areas that are not high with mask use and distancing.

Frederica Freyberg:

COVID cases spiked above 2,000 in a day this week. How truly concerning is this?

Nasia Safdar:

It’s probably the worst it’s been for a long time. I think we had a bit of a reprieve over the spring and the summer and we would all have loved to see that continue and it’s a bit hard to get your head around the fact that things aren’t going in the rosy direction we were all hoping they would. We may eventually still get there but for the moment, things are much worse than they should be.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are children less at risk?

Nasia Safdar:

I think as a group it’s true that children in the pediatric population are less at risk for severe complication of COVID. Ultimately though when you have the virus circulating in high numbers in the community, there will be enough children who might have comorbid conditions or compromised immune systems or just bad luck, but they will get infected and some will require medical care. So the numbers are expected to rise.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you think the full FDA authorization of the Pfizer vaccine this week will move people who were waiting to get vaccinated?

Nasia Safdar:

I think if your reason for not getting vaccinated was you wanted to see the stamp of full approval, which I think is going to probably be a small group, then I think you’ll get vaccinated now that we have that. But for people who don’t believe in vaccines in general and weren’t really excited about taking it, I’m not sure that the full approval will have any change.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is the situation at the hospital where you work in terms of capacity for staff, beds, equipment, ICU space? What’s happening there?

Nasia Safdar:

I think what we learned with COVID is you can go from feeling pretty good about things one week only to find that the following week the number of cases are rising exponentially. So for the moment it’s normal operations. We certainly are seeing more inpatients with COVID than we did before. But nothing more has been required of the health system at this point. But is likely not to be the case several weeks from now if things continue as unabated as they are. We just have to plan for that possibility.

Frederica Freyberg:

And what is it like then for the front line workers in the health care system to confront this once again?

Nasia Safdar:

Well, I think there’s high burn-out rates in our systems in general. I think people feel there’s really two constraints. One is you’re doing your daily work on top of the additional stress that COVID poses. And the other is as infections rise in the community, they also rise in health care workers because they live in those communities too. And then you have staffing concerns which doubles the work for those who are still at work.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what is your message to parents, schools and students as schools start?

Nasia Safdar:

I think we have to faithfully follow all recommended precautions as close to 100% of the time as we can. With that, I think we can continue to do some of the things we’d like to be able to do. Without that, we have no chance of being able to continue the way we’d like to.

Frederica Freyberg:

So without that your expectation is that potentially there could be another kind of shutdown?

Nasia Safdar:

Well, one hopes it doesn’t come to that. Those things probably aren’t sustainable. But given how quickly Delta is transmitted and spreads from person to person, even a little absent masking may not be inconsequential and you don’t know what you’re going to find until you’re in that state. I have to say children are the real heroes of this pandemic. They have masked up uncomplainingly this whole time.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you get the sense at all that people are not taking this Delta variant as seriously as people like yourselves understand it to be serious?

Nasia Safdar:

I think it’s a little bit hard to get your head around the fact that for a while things were good. We got effective vaccinations and now there’s this variant that might just change things around, plus then need for boosters and so on. It does take a while to get used to concept yes, Delta is bad and can lead to severe consequences. But having said that, I think we have to confront what’s in front of us. Denying it isn’t going to make it go away.

Frederica Freyberg:

True enough. Dr. Nasia Safdar, thanks very much and thanks for your work.

Nasia Safdar:

Thank you.