Here & Now

Epidemiologic Update: Goal Still to Shrink Virus Footprint

Frederica Freyberg:

From contact tracing to other trends in the fight against coronavirus, Dr. Ryan Westergaard, Wisconsin State Epidemiologist, monitors the pulse of what is happening across the state. As Wisconsin lurches forward with reopening, he will play a pivotal role in Wisconsin’s approach in the coming weeks. Dr. Westergaard, thank you for joining us again this week.

Ryan Westergaard:

I’m glad to be back. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

What are the numbers of positive cases and deaths trending like right now?

Ryan Westergaard:

Well, today– every day we report the sort of new updated numbers that get reported to us from the previous day. Today there were 512 new positive cases, just over 10,000 new negative case results and an additional 11 deaths reported. So these numbers are in line with what we’ve been seeing on average in the past week and a little bit higher than they have been compared to say two weeks ago.

Frederica Freyberg:

What explains that because I know during a midweek briefing you said that with 599 new positive cases day over day and then the largest number of deaths in a single day at 22 on Wednesday, you said that there are more people in the community now than there were two weeks ago that had the infection. Is that a measure of more testing or something else?

Ryan Westergaard:

Well, it is true that we’re doing more testing overall. In a given day, we’re doing 10,000 new tests. So the chances that we will capture much higher proportion of the people who are infected is definitely– is definitely possible and it might be just that we’re testing more people. But there’s a couple other sources of information that are also slightly trending in the wrong direction. The number of hospitalizations is higher than it was two weeks ago and, as you mentioned, the number of deaths overall. So we don’t have perfect information to know the true status, but when we look at a couple different ways of looking at it, it looks like the level of community transmission in Wisconsin is a little bit higher than it was a couple weeks ago.

Frederica Freyberg:

So does that mean that ending the “safer at home” order has something to do with this? Is this what is happening now?

Ryan Westergaard:

Well, as– you know, in public health and really all of science, it’s really hard to say that one occurrence definitively caused something else. When we’re talking about something like an epidemic, there’s many different factors that determine the size and the speed of community transmission. So we can’t pin it on any one thing. But we do know that the virus is transmitted from close contact between people. So if there’s a relatively low level of transmission in the community, as more people interact closely without protections of social distancing and masks, the chances are that the risk of transmission will be higher.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what goes through your head when you see images like those from Lake Geneva over the Memorial Day weekend, with people really not social distancing or wearing masks and very tightly crowded?

Ryan Westergaard:

Yeah. Well, goodness, a lot of things. So I’m from Lake Geneva. I grew up in Walworth County. So when I see those images, I mostly feel sort of a sense of purpose and mission. Like these are my people. And I feel really challenged to know are we doing everything we can. Am I doing everything I can to help our team in public health and our health care collect the right information, communicate information in the right way that people know what they need to know to stay safe. Because when I see that people are living their lives, people are doing what all people in the world do is just trying to be happy and live a full life, and I think we in public health, that’s what our goal, is for people to do that and to not have to think about us in public health. But I think the success is going to really be how well can we do those things. How well can we say we’re really in this together. The health care teams, the public health teams and the community, we really all need to feel aligned and have the same mission. So I feel like from sitting in a place working in public health, how do we support people to keep them safe and help them do the things they love to do. That’s really our goal.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you see those images. Do you feel as though people are ignoring the message that you relay day after day, week and month after month?

Ryan Westergaard:

It’s hard to know. I think people hear the message that there is a risk in the community. But I also think that people are smart enough to see that the levels are relatively low and they make decisions. The thing I think is hard for people to understand is that the things that we’re doing now in the summer ideally is going to help us drive the epidemic to a small enough level that when respiratory virus season picks up, when flu starts circulating and more people are getting colds, we really want to feel like we’re in a good position that we know where all the coronavirus cases are and know how to contain them. If we don’t do that and the risk is that COVID-19 spreads in a similar fashion as corona– I’m sorry, as seasonal influenza, we could really be in a situation of having a big surge. So I think that people understand how the virus is transmitted. What I feel like we need to do a better job communicating is how important it is for us to shrink this epidemic as small as we possibly can right now to get prepared for the four to six months down the road.

Frederica Freyberg:

So should there be that surge in four to six months down the road, is Wisconsin better prepared than we were when this first started?

Ryan Westergaard:

Oh, yes. Definitely so. So the two biggest tools that I think we have that we didn’t have two months ago are the ability to test a large number of people. Now, it’s not as high– we’re probably not at the capacity where we test every single person who has any symptom on that list, which can be, you know, sore throat, headache. If we really wanted to test everybody with those symptoms, we would probably still have some space to go for testing. But we’ve made many, many strides in getting test capacity. The other thing that was really critically important and different a couple months ago was the shortage of personal protective equipment. Our hospitals now feel they are not in a crisis situation with masks. There’s still a shortage. We’re still reusing N95 masks in ways that we didn’t typically but we’re not necessarily postponing needed care because of that. So we’re not exactly where we want to be, but clearly in a much better position of being ready than we were say two months ago.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right, we leave it there. Dr. Ryan Westergaard, thanks very much.

Ryan Westergaard:

Glad to be here.