Here & Now

Green Bay Sees COVID-19 Spike

Frederica Freyberg:

The spike in COVID cases in Green Bay is pushing hospitals there toward capacity. With the surge and community spread making that city a hot spot, within the Wisconsin red zone for the virus. Brown County with 3,777 positive cases per 100,000 people is the highest rate in the state. And the president had planned to travel to Green Bay for a rally tomorrow until he tested positive for the coronavirus. Tonight we talk with Dr. Ashok Rai. He’s the Prevea health president and CEO. He joins us from Green Bay and doctor, thanks very much for being here.

Ashok Rai:

Thanks for having me today.

Frederica Freyberg:

So first off, for any people in your community who might have contributed to the spread by not taking precautions seriously, is the president’s positive test result a wake-up call there?

Ashok Rai:

You know, I would hope so. I think what goes forward now is how the president acts publicly in the next ten days while he’s in isolation. Because you know, part of our spread issue is even people who know they’re positive not taking it seriously, going into public and contributing that spread, especially event-type situations, whether it’s a wedding or a gathering to watch a football game. That’s really where our spread is coming from and we need to be able to educate around that.

Frederica Freyberg:

How — being on the front lines, and all of your people on the front lines, how frustrating is that?

Ashok Rai:

You know, it’s very frustrating because I think a colleague in Montana said it best. In the spring, you know, we were very scared of the virus but we didn’t have a whole lot of virus. Now we have a whole lot of virus and not a lot of fear. And that’s frustrating to us right now, because there’s — the virus hasn’t dissipated at all. If anything, it’s strengthened its ability to spread from person to person. And I’m not asking everybody to be scared by any means, but let’s not forget the knowledge that got us to this point. We know we have very few tools and very few things we can do. Social distancing, wearing a mask, getting tested if you have symptoms, and staying home if you have symptoms, washing your hands. Very simple things to do, but it’s hard to get people to even comply with that.

Frederica Freyberg:

As we’ve said, the Fox Valley and Green Bay in particular have seen frightening spikes in COVID-19. You have called it a nightmare situation. How does that look?

Ashok Rai:

You know, the nightmare for us is you think about health care in general. We’re not designed — our hospitals our clinics are designed to take care of the diseases we know: the heart attacks, the car accidents, the strokes. So our hospitals are generally busy with all of that. It’s not like you designed a system to have three extra floors in case a pandemic hits. So you take 20, 30, now up to 90 new patients that are COVID-19 across the four hospitals in Green Bay. That’s on top of everything else we’re dealing. So you may not think that the virus is going to put you in the hospital. It probably won’t statistically. But you may need that hospital bed if you’re in a car accident or a motorcycle accident or having chest pain. And that’s the problem right now. That’s the nightmare situation. We have other things to take care of, plus all of our COVID-19 patients. The two combined, especially going into the flu season, is a nightmare for us.

Frederica Freyberg:

I know the state is standing up these alternative care facilities. Is it your expectation that hospitals in your area would have to kind of take potentially COVID patients and put them in those facilities?

Ashok Rai:

You know, and we’ve talked about the ACFs locally. I think some people are in favor of it. Our biggest question as a health system is who’s going to staff it. So it’s our physicians that need to see the patient in the ACF. Now you’re taking them out of the hospital where they’re needed. It’s not like these ACFs are being put right next door to us. And the nurses, where are they going to come from? The nursing staff is coming from us. So we don’t really have that ability to staff it. So a building with a bunch of cots and a couple IV poles is not what we need. We need community cooperation and more staff.

Frederica Freyberg:

More than 8,000 health care workers have tested positive in Wisconsin according to state health officials. Now that state emergency order allows for expanding the health care workforce. How much do you need that kind of relief?

Ashok Rai:

We need it big time. So I really appreciate the state doing that. Now we can go to Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and see what nurses we can pull from there. That’s the kind of desperate situation we are here in Green Bay. It’s staff. Our staff is getting sick. We’re testing them every day. I must have ordered half a dozen tests just since 8:00 this morning on our staff that are getting symptomatic and that number will grow throughout the day and the night. We are in a good position where we can test our own staff and find out if they’re positive or not and make the right decision. Not everybody is in that position. But staff is our biggest concern.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Dr. Rai, we wish you and your staff well. Thank you.

Ashok Rai:

Thank you.