Doctor sees progress in COVID-19 fight

Dr. John Raymond of the Medical College of Wisconsin says the state has done an "exemplary job" in the coronavirus fight.

The Corona virus shut down six weeksand counting in Wisconsin.

I'm AdrianPettersson today on up front.

A littlegood news.

A doctor who says we'remaking progress in the fight againstCove in 19 plus some meat packingprocessors close.

Could this cause adisruption in the food supply?

And thisis a little bit of a flashback for me,a survivor of the 2009 pandemic, hismessage about health care and theeconomytaking on the issues important toWisconsin.This is up front with your host, AdrianPettersson.

Thank you for joining us.Wisconsin is now in its 40th day ofgovernor Evers Corona Virus Stay homeorder.

But the case that could changethat is going to the Wisconsin SupremeCourt on Tuesday.

Republican lawmakers,as you know, sued the governor overextending its stay home order until May26th.

The Supreme Court will heararguments via video conference Tuesdaymorning.

The governor last week alloweda few types of businesses to reopen,but Republicans and the state'spowerful Chamber of Commerce wantbusinesses to reopen sooner, especiallyin rural areas that haven't been hithard by the virus.

On Friday, statehealth officials reported a spike incases.

The numbers in Brown, Milwaukeeand Kenosha counties have climbed, buta top doctor says Overall were stillmaking good progress against Cove in 19I talked with Dr John Raymond,president and CEO of the MedicalCollege of Wisconsin.

I think we'vedone an exemplary job of slowing thespread of Covert 19 and Wisconsin.

Inmany ways, our approach should be amodel.

The process, I know is it verychallenging and difficult andfrustrating for all of us.

But we seemto have reached an equilibrium withpandemic, and I think that's reallygood progress for all of us.

And overthe last month, we develop new toolsthat we need to stay on top of thepandemic with substantial amounts ofnew testing coming online in a publichealth infrastructure that's beenmobilized that will allow us toidentify covert 19 infections quicklyinto trace and isolate the contacts ofthose so good progress.

And when welook at some of these benchmarks, likethe 14 days of a downward trajectory, apercentage of positive tests, how closedo you think we are to something likethat?Yeah, that's really tough.

You know, Ithink that we've reached a peak andwe're in a plateau phase, with someindication that we're slowly decreasingthe numbers of covert 19 infections inour state.

But it's hard to knowexactly where you start with the 14days and whether a single day thatmight be an outlier would restart theclock.

But I think it's important toknow that we've already begun to slowlyopen our economy and phase this year.Governor E.

Versus relaxed the saferhome order twice now, and I think thatphasing is really the most responsibleway that we can open up our economy andtry to resume some semblance of normallife.

And in talking about that, whatdoes it look like to open things backup safely in your medical opinion?Well, I'll refer to the Badger BounceBack plan, which is very similar toTrump's plan to reopen America again,and basically we start with parts ofthe economy where there are fewinteractions between the consumers andthe employees.

So those air so calledsafer interactions where you couldpractise easy social distancing onthose might be outdoor activities,grocery stores and some personalservices that could be done by curbsidedrop off.

What becomes more difficultwhen you start to turn up the dialogueis where you have higher tense city,higher frequency, higher durationinteractions between people.

So, forexample, restaurants and bars largecapacity sporting events.

Those areprobably going to come further down theline when we're sure that what we donehasn't caused a new surge of Coronavirus infections here.

What will thesummer look like in Wisconsin, do youthink?But we always have beautiful summers inWisconsin, so I know that at least outoutsource, it will be nice.

Anything.People will again be resuming somesemblance of normal activities, butwe're how we're probably gonna need toexercise social distancing, good handhygiene and probably cloth facecoverings out in public places for theforeseeable future until you the virusis extinguished or there's a vaccinethat's effective for it, and it'slikely that we're gonna be living withthis virus for at least another year.And when we hear from national medicalexperts, they always say that everystate is different, and what'shappening in the States is different.So in terms of looking at Wisconsin andthis surge in the fall that we've heardabout, What is your concern there?Well, I think all of us are concernedthat like the flu epidemic of 1918 thatthe Corona virus will have a secondwave in the fall and we will bechallenging for us about that secondwave.

It's likely to occur at the sametime that we're having influenza and sodistinguishing between those twodiseases is going to be a challenge forus.

But I would say I believe ourcountry and our state are wellpositioned to deal with that challenge.We have outstanding health systems herethat testing capacity has increased in,the tests have gotten better and thepublic health infrastructure inWisconsin is particularly good.

And Ibelieve that all the efforts they madecoordinate how they do the contact.Tracing is going really certainbenefits to us in the fall.

Howconfident are you that students will beable to return to classes as usual inthe fall?I think it's a coin toss right now, andobviously I M.

C.

W.

Is an institutionof higher education, so we're thinkingdeeply about this.

I think it's it'sgonna be in phases, and it's reallygoing to depend on how well we do is weturn up the dial over the next coupleof months.

I think everybody knows thatyounger people in general are lesssusceptible to covert 19 infections andthat they tend to fare better.

But thatdoesn't mean they're completely immune.And this is something that I think,especially institutions that havedormitories and common cafeterias arejust gonna have to see what happensover the next month or so before theycommit to having on site education.

NowI know nationally, Purdue Universityand Liberty University have alreadysaid they're going to resume fullclasses in the fall, But I think that'sprobably a little bit risky, right?Where does Wisconsin stand when itcomes to testing?

That's that's anotherbig thing we hear about.We're actually doing better than moststates in terms of testing.

I know thatthe governor of the Legislature and ourmanufacturing companies have taken thisseriously and want to call out apartnership between the state ofWisconsin pro Megan Exact Sciences toprovide 85,000 test per week cove in 19and those air being rolled out.

Rightnow, our capacity now across the stateis almost at 85,000 tests a week.

It'sa little over 11,000 day, and that'slight years ahead of World War.

Even afew weeks ago, Dr Raymond, weappreciate your expertise on this.Thank you.

Thank you, Adrian.Coming up.

Meatpacking plants shut downdue to Corona virus among workers.

I'llask how concerned we should be aboutthe nation's food supply and later, andI wound up staying for a month in aColeman out of mechanical ventilator,sort of living through this experienceof surviving a viral pandemic in an I.C.

U A.

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