[EDIT: I had originally written that Health Officer Eggebrecht stated we had 7,000 doses of vaccine coming into our state on a weekly basis. Although he did inadvertently give that 7,000 figure, he corrected it to 70,000, but I missed his correction.]
The Common Council met 02/03/2021.
Alderperson Martin gave the invocation.
The Mayor then presented, and the Council, his appointment of former alderperson Chris Croatt to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Chris Will serve as an alternate on that board.
Mayor Woodford said he is still working through a few vacancies but most of them have been filled.
The mayor moved on to his proclamations. (https://allthingsappleton.com/2021/02/02/common-council-meeting-02-03-2021/)
February is Black History month and also Career and Technical Education month.
February 7-13 is Burn Awareness Week. (That proclamation had incorrectly listed it as February 1-7, but that has now been corrected to February 7-13). He gave a shout out to the Shriners for their work in raising funds for people recovering from burns. They couldn’t be at the Common Council meeting and the mayor couldn’t be at their meeting because both meetings took place at the same time.
Mayor Woodford then read in its entirety the proclamation declaring February 1-7, 2021 Gun Violence Survivor Week in Appleton. He mentioned that he signed it prior to the recent shooting at the Fox River Mall, and it was not in response to that event.
Katie Olson from Moms Demand Action was at the meeting and spoke briefly. She thanked the mayor for the proclamation and said it was astounding to have so much support in Appleton. It sounded like she said that Moms Demand Action started just after the Parkland shooting (but Wikipedia says it actually started after the Sandy Hook shooting). She said that our community is not free of gun violence, so she was glad that the mayor took time to acknowledge survivors. She directed people to a website (but her audio was garbled) and said there were numerous survivor stories posted there.
The bulk of the rest of the meeting was taken up with the Covid-19 update.
Health Officer Eggebrecht noted that a year ago this week Wisconsin had its first coronavirus case. He reviewed Appleton’s current numbers and said that Appleton had 7,610 total cases, 478 active cases, and 60 deaths. [I was a little surprised to hear him give the incorrect number of 478 active cases. As you may recall, 478 was incorrect and there were actually only 418. I can understand someone having fat fingers while entering the data, but it was a discrepancy that I noticed immediately as well as a couple commenters on the Appleton City Hall facebook post. I’m surprised he didn’t noticed it also.]
At the last Common Council meeting, Appleton had been experiencing an acceleration in cases, but now numbers only increased slightly over the previous week’s numbers, and he was happy with the lower numbers. The burden (based on both confirmed and probable cases) is down to 452. Appleton is still in the “Very High” category for burden, but we are trending in the right direction.
He mentioned that our trajectory is shrinking and that we are at a place we haven’t seen since last September. He attributed this to people wearing masks, social distancing, and washing their hands frequently. And they want to continue encouraging those behaviors going forward. [My understanding of his words is that he believes the lower rates are due to people now finally wearing masks correctly and consistently and not gathering together physically. I wish he’d give some sort of objective data to back up those claims. Anecdotally, I went to Walmart the other day and saw 8 shoppers without masks. My observations since the beginning of January lead me to believe that, while mask usage is still pretty high, the number of people not wearing them has grown since September, October, and November.]
The National Guard testing site had been moved from North high school to the Expo Center; however, Appleton has now repurposed the Expo Center as a vaccination site and moved the National Guard testing site to Reid Golf course. They’ve done 340 tests as of 02/03/2021. They conducted 1,114 tests total in January. He stressed that testing is still important in order to see and track the spread of coronavirus in our community.
As mentioned, the Fox Cities Expo Center is now being used as a vaccination clinic. Health Officer Eggebrecht thanked the city for helping with free parking and the removal of barriers and he went out of his way to applaud the department directors, all of whom have given in one way or another to this effort. He thought it was important for the community to recognize that this is an all-hands-on-deck situation and it wouldn’t happen without the efforts of the Department director, the communication director, and the mayor’s office.
He stated that they did a closed dispensing wherein they practiced on people in the Phase 1a category–correctional officers, police officers, etc. This helped them get their processes regarding the use of the facility to the point where they could open it to the public. After that initial public opening they did a few modifications in terms of patient flow which improved things. As of 02/03/2021, they were on target to vaccinate 1,000 people in the first week, and they planned to double that next week.
They’re working with the health departments in the Tri-County area and have partnerships with Ascension, ThedaCare, Mosaic Family Health, Kaukauna clinic, Primary Care Associates, Partnership, and FVTC. They’re looking to build more partnerships and increase the capacity of staffing.
They want to really accelerate the use of the Expo Center to vaccinate as many people as possible in the Tri-County area.
They then opened this up for questions.
Alderperson Schultz had several question. 4,700 people tried to register for vaccinations but only 1,000 shots were available. He wanted to know if the remaining 3,700 would be next in line. He also wanted to know if the 2,000 person target for next week was due to vaccine availability or staffing capacity and did Health Officer Eggebrecht see that weekly target being increased over time. He also said that a couple people Had anecdotally told him that only about 3% of the people getting vaccinated were non-white. He was concerned about getting the word out to those of a lower socio-economic status, those without internet access, and the Hmong community.
Per Health Officer Eggebrecht, the 2,000 target is the result of a combination of staffing and vaccine availability. There’s not a lot of vaccine available. Right now, only 70,000 doses are coming into the state of Wisconsin on a weekly basis. Wisconsin’s 65+ year old category alone is 15% of our population or 700,000 individuals. Everyone is deserving of this vaccine, but it’s just not very available.
He stressed that as long as the virus circulates throughout the world we’re all vulnerable.
Their plan is to gear up and have the Expo Center be an important resource, but it’s not the only resource. All of the health care systems are waiting for the vaccine to become available.
Another limiting factor is that, in addition to the availability of the vaccine, they want the experience to be safe and to grow at a pace that doesn’t compromise quality. They have been very deliberate in training the staff at the Expo Center facility, under the knowledge that one bad experience by an early adapter will impact the word-of-mouth about the vaccination clinic going forward.
They want to double their numbers next week, but they are also conscious that it will be very cold and they want to manage things in such a way that the people over 65 coming to get vaccinated won’t have to be outside waiting in the cold for any length of time. Safety and quality are important.
Wisconsin is targeting the people who are most vulnerable. The city worked with their healthcare partners to find out who waa dying and being hospitalized the most, and that’s why they settled on people 65 and older as their priority group for that location. They know people of color, particularly Latinos and African Americans, are at greater risk, and they have begun to plan for more outreach.
Regarding the registration of 4,700 people or only 1,000 doses, he acknowledged that the registration process with their partners resulted in more than 1,000 people registering. They thought the right thing to do is to give those people priority over the next few weeks. They will ramp up to 2,000 next week, then do another 2,000 the week after that which should take care of that group.
They are doing outreach to targeted groups. They’ll be outreaching people from the African Heritage group and vaccinating some of their members who are 65+ and would like to be vaccinated. They will continue to partner with groups that can recognize the data behind who is at greatest risk and who needs to be prioritized.
Regarding computer access and language, that is an area they want to address as well and that is part of their planning effort as they move forward.
Alderperson Coenen also commented on the 4,700 people who registered for the 1,000 vaccine doses. She mentioned that her parents are elderly and she’s been working with them. Between the Expo Center, Ascencion, and Theda Care, you don’t know where to go to get vaccinated as quickly as possible. She considers herself pretty educated, and she probably has more information regarding this than a lot of people in the city, but she and her parents are still having a hard time maneuvering through the system.
Health Officer Eggebrecht appreciated her bringing that up because that’s what they’re seeing in the emails they’re receiving as well. He thought there was frustration because when people watch TV they see a different pattern and different priority groups. That’s because different states can prioritize different groups as they deem appropriate.
He wanted to take time to explain how WI has prioritized groups. Through a contract with CVS and Walgreens the Long Term Care facilities and assisted living facilities became a priority early on. That continues to use a large number of vaccine doses in WI–rightly so. WI followed who was most sickly and likely to die from that disease and focused on them. For the remaining available vaccine, WI has listed priority groups. Registered vaccinators have to agree to follow those priority groups regarding who is eligible.
Per Health Officer Eggebrecht, It’s frustrating for everyone to know that we don’t have enough vaccine right now. He stressed the need for people to be aware that the manufacturing of the vaccine can only go at the pace it goes at. WI is getting its fair share of the vaccine; every state is getting it in proportion to its population. But it’s simply a math game, that there’s more people who want the vaccine than vaccine available.
He urged the alderpersons to tell their constituents to be persistent. He stated that one unnamed health partner is doing a good job of going into their electronic records system and looking at people with underlying health conditions so that they could prioritize individuals without the 65+ age group.
Alderperson Coenen reiterated that the confusion is caused by not knowing where to go. Do they turn to their healthcare provider or the city? She thought additional prioritization within the 65 or older category made sense and she certainly wanted people in care facilities to be prioritized. But there was also a lot of confusion about how to get people who were eligible for shots on the list.
Health Officer Eggebrecht appreciates that and wanted the community to know that when more vaccine becomes, the city of Appleton will be able to deliver it as quickly as possible.
Mayor Woodford told the alderpersons that if they were seeing questions or themes regarding vaccines or testing to convey that to him so that he could pass it on to the health department team. He thought it would also help the Tri-County multicultural communications group address some of the concerns they’ve talked about regarding equity of access.
Mayor Woodford also wanted to share his appreciation and praise for Kurt Eggebrecht’s leadership in this area.
After that, they moved onto the business items of the agenda. Nothing was separated out or discussed. Everything was approved as it was.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=825731&GUID=740300B4-DC08-49FD-9DF1-A417CCC8EFBF&Options=info|&Search=
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