Her engineer has everything
he needs before
we get started.
All right.
I think we're having our last warm
day for a while.
I know. I went out to get lunch
without a jacket on, and it was
lovely.
Are you.
Ready?
Yeah. I am in Madison.
Actually just right off Whitney way
right now.
Okay.
And you're with the School of
Medicine.
School of Medicine and Public
Health.
Okay.
So give me one more moment.
I'm just chatting with him and
making sure.
We have everything ready.
Okay.
So thank you for doing this.
Just start with your name and title.
My name is John Tempe.
I am the associate Dean for Public
health and Community engagement
at the School of Medicine and Public
Health.
And just tell me a little bit about
what is going on with respiratory
illnesses right now.
At this point in time, we're seeing
increases in just about
everything out there.
And in more
specific viruses,
we're seeing increases in influenza
and and Sirs Kobe,
too, or Covid 19
and in RSV.
So we're seeing a lot of people
in our hospitals are getting quite
full.
What is quite for mean?
Well, I've heard that
some of the hospitals are
having difficulty finding rooms for
everybody.
One of my colleagues in pediatric
infectious disease indicated
that there are a lot of children
hospitalized with influenza at
this time.
Yeah. And the DHS
dashboard shows that it's
worse for 0 to 4
year olds right now.
Why is that?
Well, in general, with respiratory
viruses, our youngest and
our oldest patients have the
most complications
for children from the
time of birth until they're four
years old.
They tend to have immune
systems that are not experienced
with viruses.
They tend to be smaller.
So, for example, respiratory
syncytial virus or RSV
can cause a lot of secretion
and produce difficulty breathing.
And almost with any
of the viruses, we see a lot more
fever with the
first or second time exposure
as compared to those of us older
who've seen many of these viruses
many, many times.
And so
the older population
isn't seeing the the rate
as much as the 0 to 4 year olds.
Well, we might be seeing the viruses
commonly, but the exposure
is less.
And to be perfectly honest, the
age group that has the most exposure
and the highest rates of infection
tend to be our school age children.
By very nature of being in a school
situation, having a lot
of contact with other
people their age, being
in congregate living situations
or congregate situations.
However, when they bring them on
home to younger brothers and
sisters, that's where we tend to see
more of the problems.
And a pediatric patient recently
passed away.
Is the severity of
influenza particularly worse
this season?
Well, you know, if we go back just a
few years into the pandemic,
we saw virtually no deaths
in the United States from influenza
in children
last year.
We saw kind of a return
to, unfortunately, what we
call normal, which is around 200
deaths per year from influenza
this year across the
nation.
We've had about 20 deaths
so far in
children or individuals
under the age of 18.
And so the fact that Wisconsin
has had one death in a child
is fairly
average for influenza, but
is very tragic because most
of these children don't have
underlying medical problems
and most of them have not been
vaccinated.
And I was going to ask,
what are vaccine uptake
rates looking like for children?
Well, in general,
for children under the age of
four years old, we do
relatively well comparatively.
But I have to step it back and say,
across Wisconsin, only 31%
of people eligible for receiving
vaccine have received vaccine so
far.
If we look at younger children, they
tend to be up up in the 40s
to 50%,
as do people over the age of 65.
But we're really missing a lot
of people out there that we could
provide a lot of benefit to.
There was something in
the email sent to me about new
insights.
Do you have
anything in particular that's kind
of new information about
these viruses?
Nothing in particular other
than the fact that we're watching
very, very closely for
this avian influenza.
And the potential
that it could jump to humans.
As of
today, we know of at least three
cases across the country where we
don't know where where the
individual contracted
the virus from.
Most of the other cases have been
from dairy cattle or from
poultry.
But it's really worrisome.
And I mention that simply because
during the time that we have
the regular influenza circulating,
we have the potential for mixing
within individuals
and the production of
different viruses that could
attain the ability to spread human
to human.
And so that's one of the
biggest new concerns
we have out there.
Anything else that you
would like to add?
Well, I think for anybody
interested, there's
really good information available
through the CDC at
CDC that
vaccines. I want to make sure I have
this correct. So if you go
to vaccines.gov.
That can provide you up to date
information about where you can get
your vaccines and also a lot of
background information.
Another site is cdc.gov/risk
less, do more.
And that can provide you up to date
information on
what's happening in your community
with respiratory viruses and
a lot of other good information.
One last thing.
Have we reached our
peak
in terms of of these
rates increasing or are we
going to continue to see more
increases?
I suspect we're going to see here
in the southern Wisconsin in wage
increases for the next
2 or 3 weeks.
Typically, influence will peak out
in late January, early February.
We're seeing Covid 19
come in on up at this point in time
and RSV typically
peaks in February.
So we're we're still going
to be dealing with these viruses for
a few more weeks here.
What about other parts
of the state? Like some parts of
northern Wisconsin are at a very
high categorization.
Well, in general,
we see similar patterns
across the state.
For the most part, some
regions might see a focus
that is more intense for a while.
But in general, when we talk
about the viruses being in
circulation for the next few weeks,
this applies to our entire
state.
Okay.
All right.
That's all I have for you.
Anything else?
No. I think the last word
is if you haven't been vaccinated
yet for influenza and
Covid, go out
and get vaccinated.
It's not too late.
And if you're eligible for the
vaccine, really think hard about
getting that one as well.
So
other than that, enjoy
and keep healthy.
All right. Thank you very much.
You're very welcome.
Take care.
Sophia. Anything you need for me?
No, I think I'm good.
Just. Do you have any idea of when
the story will air?
So we are going to put a portion
of this interview in our program
this evening.
Okay. Sounds great.
All right. Thanks for your time.
You're welcome. You take care now.
Bye. Bye.