The new COVID-19 vaccine is increasingly available now, including at vaccine clinics like this
one at UW-Madison this week.
Studies across the state are providing shots for no out-of-pocket costs with insurance
or free for people without insurance.
Even though in the first weeks after approval, supply chain issues have meant an uneven
stock of vaccine, resulting in some dropped appointments.
On the infection itself, what is the status of COVID activity across the state right now?
And should we expect a false surge in cases?
For the current look, we turn to Wisconsin's Chief Medical Officer and State Epidemiologist
Dr. Ryan Westergaard, and nice to see you again, Dr.
Yes.
Thank you for having me back.
So, by looking at data on the DHS website, latest numbers show hospitalizations for COVID-19
growing.
At 95 percent, it said, in the northeast portion of Wisconsin, is that indicative of a surge?
Well we've been following this for the past couple of months and have seen the various
regions in the state switch places with respect to which are increasing and which have been
been decreasing.
In the northern region, going up by that amount, is probably significant.
But compared to traditional or historical levels, it's still relatively low.
And that's true of our case data as well.
We're seeing a steady increase in how much COVID activity is happening around the state,
but it's still low by historical standards when you look at the worst days of the pandemic
in the past few years.
And so, would you say, even though these regions kind of swap places in terms of how much the
cases are growing or hospitalizations are growing, overall, is it kind of a slow burn
right now with COVID cases?
It has been.
And that's something that we've learned about COVID that's a little bit different from the
other respiratory viruses like flu and RSV.
There's tends to be a discrete flu season where there's very little of any flu and
then it comes with a big surge.
COVID's never really gone away.
Now, we fully expect that it could get worse in the winter as most respiratory viruses
do, but a slow burn over the late summer and early fall is pretty accurate description
of what we've seen.
So what is the monitoring of wastewater showing?
I know that's another kind of metric that health officials look at.
Yeah, similarly, it's telling the same story.
If you look at the first half of the spring and summer up until about July, the levels
of virus that are detected in the wastewater had been as low as they had been at any point
during the pandemic since we've been monitoring it with this new tool.
Starting in late July and then through September and into this week, it's been steadily increasing.
There is a little bit jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the overall message is that there's an
upward trend.
How well do experts think the new vaccine protects against this latest sub variant that we're
seeing?
Well, we're very hopeful.
The data that the CDC advisory committee used to recommend the new formulation showed
that at least in the laboratory, the antibodies that your body generates in response to this
new vaccine are about twice as good, twice as effective as neutralizing the virus particles
than the previous bivalent COVID booster.
So we have reason to believe that it's a pretty good match.
No virus is perfect.
And as we've learned as time has gone on, the COVID vaccines are extremely helpful for
preventing the most dangerous and severe complications of COVID-19, including hospitalization,
ICU admission and death.
It doesn't, in fact, it doesn't prevent all infections, but if someone comes in contact
with the virus, it's a very effective way of reducing the risk of severe disease.
What do we know about the, what's called the uptake of vaccines across Wisconsin?
Are people going out and getting this vaccine?
Well, that's pretty early in the season.
It's only been around for a few weeks.
So the number of people who have received a COVID vaccine, similar to a flu vaccine,
and you should also acknowledge that it's flu vaccine season as well, still low by historical
standards.
And as you mentioned in your intro, there has been some heterogeneity in how quickly
vaccine is getting to the places where vaccines are administered in pharmacies around different
parts of the state.
What we've here from our federal partners is that there is more than enough vaccine already
manufactured for everyone who wants a vaccine to have one, but it may require some patients
depending on where you live and what health system, what pharmacy you use for them to
stock up so that people can get it without any delay.
Speaking of the flu vaccine, I know a lot of people wonder, can you get both at the same
time?
I mean, it certainly can.
And, you know, and we recommend that for our clinical partners to not miss any opportunities
to give a vaccine, if someone's available, it's certainly safe and recommended to get
both at the same time.
In terms of what's been described as the supply chain kind of issue with getting enough vaccine
into pharmacies, et cetera, that's because there was kind of a switch.
It used to be that the government bought it all up and then dispersed it out to the states.
And now it's back to kind of the market application of this.
Yeah, yeah, we've called that the commercialization process.
So the first two years of vaccines were available.
You're exactly right.
The government bought the entire supply and made it available for free to people in the
United States through the state health departments, which set up mass vaccination clinics, distributed
it to hospitals and clinics and local and tribal health departments.
So that's it's changed now.
So we can access the COVID-19 vaccine in the same way that we do other vaccines through
places where we get health care increasingly through pharmacies.
The other difference, of course, now is that insurance does cover vaccines, whereas before
they were free for everyone.
So people that don't have insurance coverage for vaccines can still get a free vaccine,
but they need to go to one of the places that's participating in something called the Bridge
Access Program, and you can find locations in your area participating in that program
by going to vaccines.gov.
Great.
Thanks, Ryan Westergaard.
Thanks very much for the update.
Always a pleasure.
Thank you.
Stream is clear.
Thank you.
I was a little all over the place there.
I'm back and forth to supply chain.
Your questions show that you already know quite a lot, so they were all the right questions.
Nobody knows.
Nobody knows what to do about COVID, but thank you very much.
Thank you for your time.
Okay.
Take care.
All right.