Our Choices Our Dance

School District of Waukesha Board of Education Members Bill Baumgart, Joseph Como Jr., Greg Deets, Patrick McCaffery, Corey Montiho, Kurt O'Bryan, Karin Rajnicek, Amanda Roddy, Diane Voit

School District of Waukesha Superintendent Jim Sebert

School District of Waukesha Deputy Superintendent Joe Koch

Mayor of Waukesha Shawn Reilly

County Executive Paul Farrow

Monday, January 11, 2021

Dear Officials, 

I am writing as a resident and parent to advocate that our schools and community adopt a science-based system with gating against COVID-19 that emphasizes safety for all our citizens, especially our students and teaching staff.

A pediatrician friend here in SE Wisconsin shared the recent article by NPR, How COVID-19 Attacks The Brain And May Cause Lasting Damage with the reflection that they are very concerned about the public not taking this virus seriously enough. We all know today that there is an average 1% chance of death in Wisconsin for those who contract this virus and this now includes 2 of our children aged 10 to 19. In the article, we are shown that there is also the real possibility of developing significant long-term side effects involving the brain. “For many affected patients, brain function improves as they recover. But some are likely to face long-term disability, de Erausquin says.” The damaged brain areas may include parts that control the body, leading to malfunctions in heart rate, blood pressure, and even urinary control. I also recall the Ohio State study in September that showed college athletes with recordable damage to the heart muscle itself after a COVID-19 infection. This virus is NOT the flu. 

I believe the push by some politicians to safeguard entities from potential future COVID-19 litigation is because they know that what they are advocating, pushing to stay open (both businesses and schools) and not adhere to medically-based protocols, are risky and dangerous choices.

We can make different choices. Many scientists and medical professionals have established covid gating criteria for different places around the world. Former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden’s PreventEpidemics.org has a great one that includes alert tiers for when and where different ages of school children should be as community viral rates change. While our numbers have gone down, our hospitals are still very busy, rates are “very high” per DHS, and appear to again be rising.

We (all adults everywhere) knew this would be a dance. We (all adults everywhere) knew we’d need to adapt. If rates fell, we could relax. If rates rose, we would need to contract. We (all adults everywhere) have done a poor job at that dance so far because too many sat on the sidelines or even put their feet out to trip those out on the floor. To consider coming back together until we have fewer infections and appreciable levels of vaccinations throughout the community is folly.

We should have done this all months ago. However, it’s not too late as we move forward to finish the second half of the school year. Please do what you can to support and protect our children and staff. Please advocate to those you know within other entities at city, town, and county levels to adopt a strong plan. We need to work together. Please.

As a side note, if nothing new is done locally, and the federal government releases plans for vaccinations and/or viral control when the Biden Administration takes over on January 20, I ask that the school board, the city, and the county accept those plans, promote them, and actively put them into practice. Again, we need to work together. As so many have said before: together we rise, divided we fall.

I thank you for your work and your consideration.

Sincerely,

Susan Baumgartner

Time Will Tell: The Mess and Hopes of Wisconsin and Beyond

I didn’t do a monthly look back on the 14th as I have since we were all back intto school back in September here in Wisconsin. The data spoke for themselves. The increasing numbers of folks knowing friends and loved ones suffering and dying spoke of our realities.


For a great review of where the nation is at, I again refer you to Dr. Tom Frieden and his blog, Covid Epidemiology, where this week he says this will hopefully be his last report as the federal government operations that normally are in charge of this stuff aren’t being muzzled anymore and are posting this information publicly as they should have been since the beginning. It’s bad. Most of the nation is about “six times the rate at which we figured contact tracing would be hard or impossible” to do.

Through 12/21, Milwaukee County has lost 942 to COVID19 while neighboring Waukesha County (with 42% the population) has lost 310. There’s a disparity there just as there is in the populations that need addressing but that’s for another day. One could argue that it’s “only” 0.10% and 0.08% of each county’s respective total population suffering the ultimate penalty. One could say it’s “only” a death rate of 1.2% of all positives in Milwaukee County and 0.9% of all positives in Waukesha County.


But it’s also 1,252 families with new holes at the family tables. Thousands of friends with one less number on their phones. Probably hundreds of workplaces with one less employee, religious organizations with one less congregant, and businesses with one less customer.


It’s also about 112,944 folks who have had to isolate- or who should have. Who had to stop working and interacting with others to not spread the virus, thus affecting everyone they live with. Or should have. If those folks worked, it impacted their employers and probably cost them wages. Or should have. The government isn’t helping much in that regard.


It’s about the approximate 4,870 people of that 112,944 who have been hospitalized and have either slowly recovered or...are still fighting. 4% of all positives in Waukesha end up in hospital care. 5.8% of all the Milwaukee County ones do.


It’s thousands of healthcare workers who have to treat all the positives in their care at nursing homes, care facilities, and at clinics and hospitals as positive cases become critical. Those HCW impacted also have families of their own who are touched by this all: children, spouses, parents…


Looking at today’s totals on world rates of covid, the US has the 5th highest overall positive count in the world from the beginning of this pandemic- behind only Czechia, San Marino, Montenegro, Luxembourg, and Andorra. 55,075 cases for every million people. People are suffering around the world, make no mistake. But the US is showing the world a side of COVID19 in a shameful scale.


The world isn’t partying while the US wallows in some false reality of a fake virus. The fact that the “greatest” country in the world has a huge percent of the population believing things like this and not working together with medicine and science is so depressingly mind-blowing. Watching this unfold has been stomach-turning.


We have so much work ahead of us. Dr. Frieden highlights this, too. This virus needs to be controlled and THEN people need to be reintroduced in widening circles to each other in systematic ways. National and international pandemic plans need to be created to be in place for the next time this happens. (I love how Dr. Frieden put it: “It’s literally now or never to fix public health at local, city, state, national, [and on] global levels.”) Our economy needs to be rebuilt, including collecting taxes and/or donations of investment from our most solvent corporations and individuals to restore the nation’s financial strength. All the other crises the US is facing also need to be addressed in their own ways by thought-leaders within those fields, including racial equity, climate change, green economy, education, and health care.


After this year is done, we can take a look back and see how our overall death rates compared in 2020 to what we have experienced in previous years. Perhaps folks like me will be begging forgiveness at blowing this virus out of proportion. I for one would be glad to do so.


We have to get through this virus first. I eagerly await 2021.

Time Will Tell: Three Months In and a Challenge for Us All

This line strikes me. 

This is the one thing Dr. Frieden presses when confronted with the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. 

I have to question it. “Rebuild social cohesion”? We never had it. Well, we had a manufactured unity based on white culture. This election cycle proved that we have issues going way back that have precluded true cohesion of the whole. 

And yet, we must have unity moving forward if we hope to manage this microbe and others that will arise in the years ahead. Cohesion and trust are the two items that countries who are successfully responding to SARS-CoV2 have. No one is completely safe from this microbe, but teamwork is proving to lead to positive results and recoveries. There are large countries with only hundreds of deaths and economies recovering.

A bit more than 3 months into the 2020-21 school year. How badly are we failing in comparison? I will list mid-September, October, and November numbers. 


85. 100. 163.

County deaths. When I took IHME’s state death projections and adjusted them to Waukesha County’s population, I predicted we’d lose 220-240 people by 12/1. That’s only 57-77 more people. It’s highly likely we will surpass that awful number.


8%. 21%. 38%.

County positive test rates. Our testing has remained fairly steady, but we’re losing it on contact tracing. Data are only good if they are received quickly and used. This viral growth is completely unacceptable- we are not isolating it. We’re just saying “Yeah, it’s here." Our contact tracing is now being farmed off to those who receive positive results. 


134. 484. 1,145.

County infections per 100,000 people. If we picture the virus as salt dissolved in water, we are living in a really salty sea right now. The virus is receiving exactly what it needs to thrive and we seem incapable and unwilling to change its living conditions.


1,210. 1,508. 2,573.

State Deaths. IHME predicted in late summer that 3,708 COVID-19 deaths will have occurred in Wisconsin as of 12/1. We are within sight of that now, everyone, and we could blow past it. We lost 1,065 people across Wisconsin in the last month.


Oh, come on. How bad can it really be?

If you’re not following him, I recommend checking out Dr. Tom Frieden, the former Director of the CDC, and someone who’s specialized in pandemics and recoveries. He posts regularly and this week’s summary was particularly packed with both depressing data and helpful information.


He references The Covid Tracking Project's weekly report for the nation:

“Cases are up 41%, hospitalizations up 20%, and deaths up 23%. States reported 875,401 new cases this week; 1 in 378 Americans tested positive for COVID-19 this week.

The seven-day average of deaths now exceeds 1,000 per day, a level not seen since the summer surge. States reported another 7,382 lives lost to COVID-19 in the past week.”

That positive rate seems shocking but we must remember this: that’s only 0.26% of our population. Even if we’re missing 80% of infections, that would still mean only a tiny fraction of our total population has been infected.


Herd immunity without a vaccine? Picture what we have gone through to-date and it just keeps going for months. Getting worse. Until finally, someday, it peters out. What and who will be left?


This report mentions Wisconsin specifically several times. Wisconsin is among the top 5 per-capita infection centers of the nation at the moment. Mayo Clinic is stating its facilities in northern Wisconsin are full. Full. And now there are data showing our Indigenous population is increasingly being affected by Covid-19, which is just another facet of that overall equity and social justice problems underlying our lack of cohesion and trust.


So, all the news just sucks?

No. Dr. Frieden points to some evidence coming to light about our immune systems and having hd OTHER coronaviruses. There MAY be some “cross-reacting antibodies” that some of us have that might help us combat SARS-CoV2. We still don’t know why some people’s systems react so strongly to this virus, though.


We also have reports on two vaccine studies with promise, and about a dozen overall in the works around the world. Data about this virus are multiplying and that can only aid the worldwide fight to control it.


Dr. Frieden wrote and published an article in The Atlantic yesterday to expound upon the current situation and our future. My lead quote is from that article. We’ll be seeing 2,000 deaths per day- every day- soon. Most of our 2021 living will be controlled by this virus.


What can we do?

Social cohesion and trust. Can we do it?

The current administration's failure to orchestrate a coordinated, focused approach to this virus leaves us with a huge mountain to climb. But, as Dr. Frieden says in his article, all is not lost. I will both quote the article and include some of my own interpretations of what he says in the article.

There are things for individuals and businesses to do:

1. “Indoor restaurants, bars, and social gatherings are, sadly, unsafe right now.”
2. “Many clusters of cases come from people who go to work, school, or social get-togethers while ill. No testing, government, or health-care program can control COVID-19 if people continue this behavior.”
3. “Business meetings and work that can be remote should stay so.”
4. Delivery, curbside pickup, and strict shopping safety measures.
5. Keep hair salons and stores open by maximizing safety measures.
6. Take care of body, mind, and spirit. Outdoors is safest and can be good for mental health, too.

There are things for our leaders to do:

1. Communicate honestly, directly, and regularly.
2. Universal mask mandate for public places.
3. Support The People. “Around the world, the best-performing countries provide stipends, social support, and temporary housing to help people who are quarantined.”
4. Science-based standards. Strategic closing of parts of our system needs to be based upon community spread. “An effective closure needs to be nuanced, specific, and tightened and loosened based on real-time data about where the virus is spreading.”
5. Support the delivery and rollout of a safe, effective, and widely available vaccine.

Social cohesion and trust. Can we do it?


We’d all rather go about what we WANT to do. We’d all rather focus on something ELSE. COVID-19 is hanging about all our heads. 

Those "something elses". We have a lot of different ones and it seems like we all have a pet cause or two or more. Things like personal freedoms, jobs, human rights, social justice, religious freedoms, environment, health care, mental health, green industries, education, clean food, clean water, clean air...the list of things we hold dear goes on. Please feel free to add to what I have begun here.

Now consider:

Each is connected to the other.

We are connected to each other.

Social cohesion and trust. Can we do it?




Time will tell.