Frederica Freyberg:

Now to health news. Governor Evers toured the state this week to call for a special session of the Legislature to expand BadgerCare and invest $100 billion in federal recovery money into state economic recovery. Republicans immediately opposed the Medicaid expansion. Leadership is expected to gavel in and gavel out the session with no action taken.

Now to COVID news. Local governments across the state took steps this week to follow CDC guidelines to no longer require vaccinated people to wear masks in public. Hospitals, prisons, airports and schools will continue the requirement. This comes as vaccination rates continue to climb. We check in on vaccinations and the loosening of public health restrictions now with Bellin Hospital Emergency Medicine Dr. Paul Casey. He joins us from Green Bay. Thanks for being here again.

Paul Casey:

You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the last time that we talked with you was in October and your hospital and the communities it serves were in the midst of the fall surge of COVID-19 and sending patients to the state field hospital was under consideration at that time. How does today compare to that?

Paul Casey:

Today is remarkably different. We are still seeing COVID, but the number of COVID patients is markedly diminished compared to the fall. We’re running a census of anywhere one to six COVID patients per day compared to greater than 40 per day in the fall. So even though COVID is still here, the numbers we’re seeing are markedly diminished. I think I heard yesterday that it was the lowest since last June yesterday.

Frederica Freyberg:

So one of the questions I did want to ask you was can you and your staff yet exhale then in relief?

Paul Casey:

Yes. We can. And we’ve been waiting for this for a long time. The pandemic is something that those of us in the medical profession have never seen in our lifetime. This is a once in a century event. It truly was worldwide and still is a worldwide pandemic that in this country has killed almost 600,000 people. At the peak of our experience at Bellin Hospital, 25% of our hospital capacity was filled with COVID patients who were very, very ill. And the number of deaths and hospitalizations do not truly reflect the devastation caused by this disease. There’s something called the long hauler syndrome where even if you’ve had COVID and not be sick enough to be hospitalized, you can have sequelae for months and years. This is something we have not seen in our lifetimes.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the vaccination rate in Brown County where you are sits at about 40%, about the same rate for the state as a whole. One of your neighboring counties is at 30%. Is that high enough in your estimation?

Paul Casey:

Absolutely not. We need 75%, 80% vaccination rates to achieve adequate herd immunity. And fortunately we have a higher rate within our hospital community. We’re sitting at 71% of our hospital staff fully vaccinated at this point. So the only way we’re going to get out of this pandemic and be able to not wear masks is to get herd immunity and that’s unachievable until we have a higher rate.

Frederica Freyberg:

But with the dramatic easing of cases and at the same time vaccinations, although not at a high enough rate, we’re now in a place where mask requirements and crowd restrictions are on the way out. Do you think that is the right course?

Paul Casey:

It is if the CDC recommendations are followed. So the recommendations were based on recent scientific studies that showed mainly three main points. First of all, the vaccine is 90% effective. It’s actually more effective in reality than it was in the clinical trials. Dr. Fauci was on the air yesterday pointing out these three points. The first of which is the vaccine is 90% effective at preventing illness from COVID-19. The second point is that the vaccines are highly effective against the variants. That was our biggest concern, that the new variants would not be handled by the vaccines. But we know now that they do cover the variants. And the third point is that even if you get infected after having been vaccinated, the chances of you having enough viral load to transmit the virus is exceedingly small. The fear we had is even though you were vaccinated, you could still get an asymptomatic infection and have enough virus to transmit it. We’re now finding out from recent studies that that’s not true. The chance of transmission if you’re vaccinated if you do get infected and don’t have symptoms is very, very small.

Frederica Freyberg:

All very, very good news. Dr. Paul Casey, thank you very much and thank you for your work.

Paul Casey:

You’re welcome.