The Common Council met on 12/02. The meeting was quite short (only 17 minutes), which I suspect is probably fairly normal for a December meeting and something I certainly won’t fault them for.
After they voted on some committee reappointments, Mayor Woodford mentioned that the city has been posting and publicizing committee opportunities online. This is a new process. They’re trying to generate more interest from the community and to create opportunities for people to get involved. So far the response has been very good in terms of people applying for these openings. The mayor suggested that if alderpersons have constituents who are interested in getting involved in city government that they encourage them to look into these openings.
[I do think it’s a really positive thing that Appleton is publicizing these opportunities more than they have in the past and, hopefully, making serving in government more accessible than it had been.]
The largest portion of the meeting was taken up by the Covid update.
Health Officer Kurt Eggebrecht started out by saying he had good news to share and that it had been a while since he had been able to do that. Cases have decreased. They went from a high of 409 total cases the week before down to 267 cases over the week of Thanksgiving. He recognized that part of that may have been because people were possibly not seeking testing the week of the holiday, but he still had guarded optimism and was excited that cases had gone down.
As of 12/02 Appleton had 5,344 total cases (both confirmed and probable). 522 were still in isolation, and there had been 43 deaths at that time [now up to 44].
The burden has decreased to 901 which removed Appleton from the “critically high” category and moved us into the “very high” category. The burden and trajectory composite also moved down from “critically high” to “very high”.
Health Officer Eggebrecht stated that we’re not out of the woods though. The health department had a meeting the morning of 12/02 with healthcare partners in the city. ICU rooms in particular are still very busy and at a very high level, but overall Covid case counts in the hospital have dropped. [He didn’t give specific numbers, but looking at the WHA Covid Tracker website I can say as of 12/02 21 of 104 total ICU beds in the Fox Cities are taken by Covid patients and total Covid hospitalizations have dropped to 96 from a high of 164.]
He thinks we will still experience some issues. He was specifically concerned about Thanksgiving and said it will still be a couple of weeks before we know how Thanksgiving impacted cases.
The National Guard testing site has been going very well. In the month of October they performed at 3,851 tests. In November they did 4,883. In December, after only 2 days, they are all ready at 672. They’ve performed 8,806 total tests as of 12/02/2020.
Alderperson Meltzer pointed out that the National Guard site is only slated to stay open through Dec 9 and wondered if there would be an extension or if possibly something else would open up after it closed down.
Health Officer Eggebrecht confirmed that it will require a renewal by the President to stay open beyond the 9th. There are some indications that if that renewal doesn’t happen, Governor Evers is interested in continuing those sites. There may be a short break between the Federal government deciding not to continue and something else opening, but Kurt believes that the State will find a way to continue them.
Alderperson Thao wanted to know if, in the future, testing sites would offer the rapid result tests so that it would take minutes to get results instead of days.
Health Officer Eggebrecht said that the test the National Guard offers is a molecular test often referred to as a PCR test. There is also a test called an antigen test which can give results in as little as 15 minutes. That rapid turnaround time is advantageous, but it also has limitations. Specifically, it’s a very sensitive test for people who are symptomatic, but not as definitive for people who are not symptomatic.
These rapid antigen tests are becoming increasingly available in our region. The UW Oshkosh campus has a community site that offers them, and a lot of people from Appleton have gone there. ThedaCare has also been accelerating the use of it in their systems.
A new antigen test that uses saliva and that would, consequently, be easier to administer may come out next month, but they haven’t received word yet whether it will be available locally any time soon.
Alderperson Thao wanted to know if there would be a cost to people who get the rapid result test or if it would be free like the PCR test currently is.
Health Officer Eggebrecht thought that there would be probably be a fee if the tests were administered by city healthcare partners (I.e. doctors and hospitals). The National Guard site is free, but he expected them to keep using the PCR test. The PCR test is the gold standard. It is the most accurate test available.
That concluded the Covid update. They voted to approve all the committee reports and voted to approve an ordinance adjusting the boundary between Appleton and the Town of Buchanan whereupon the meeting ended.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=811373&GUID=2E13E7D5-10F5-424F-AE58-9616B2A6C3DE&Options=info|&Search=
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