There was a brief Covid-19 Report at the Common Council meeting on 12/15/2021. Interim Health Officer Jensen appeared remotely and reviewed the current case numbers and burden which are currently considered “Critically High” and, as she noted, they are, unfortunately, around where Appleton was at this time last year.
She said that as of 12/15 there were a total of 145 Covid patients across all 13 hospitals in the Fox Valley Healthcare Emergency Readiness Coalition region. 25 of those patients were in the ICU. She pointed out that at the beginning of the month, there had been 111 hospitalized patients. [I took that to be obliquely referencing the rate of increase from then until now.]
She did not have a vaccination chart in the agenda packet, [she has, in fact, not included one for the last few meetings] but she did go over the vaccination numbers at of 12/13/2021.
Country, State, and County Numbers (Fully Vaccinated)
- USA – 61%
- State of Wisconsin – 57.4%
- Calumet County – 51.9%
- Winnebago – 55.9%
- Outagamie – 58.0%
City of Appleton Numbers
- Total Population (Fully Vaccinated) – 62.9%
- Total Population (At Least One Dose) – 66.3%
- 12 and Older (Fully Vaccinated) – 74.8%
- 12 and Older (At Least One Dose) – 78.7%
- 12-17 Year-Olds (Fully Vaccinated) – 60%
- 12-17 Year-Olds (At Least One Dose) – 64.8%
[I’ll be interested to see how these numbers progress over the next month or so particularly once they start reporting the 5-11 year old vaccination numbers. I have the numbers from 11/30 listed below along with the difference between those numbers and the 12/13 numbers.
City of Appleton Numbers (as of 11/30/2021)
- Total Population (Fully Vaccinated) – 62.2% (0.7 difference)
- Total Population (At Least One Dose) – 65.5% (a 0.8 difference)
- 12 and Older (Fully Vaccinated) – 73.9% (a 0.9 difference)
- 12 and Older (At Least One Dose) – 77.8% (0.9 difference)
- 12-17 Year-Olds (Fully Vaccinated) – 58.9% (1.1 difference)
- 12-17 Year-Olds (At Least One Dose) – 64% (0.8 difference)]
Interim Health Officer Jensen explained that they were not at this time able to report numbers for the 5-11 year old age group which recently became eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer, but she did report anecdotally, “At the Appleton clinic site alone we have vaccinated over 400 in that age group—and that would be clients, not just vaccines.”
She said they were still watching the Omicron variant. There has been at least one case identified in the State of Wisconsin, but the Delta variant is still the predominant strain in Wisconsin. She said that Omicron was still fairly new, but they did know it was 2-2.5 times as transmissible/contagious than the Delta variant, but so far it seems to have milder symptoms.
She opened things up for question.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) asked if she could provide the number of breakthrough cases to-date and the percentage of vaccinated people that were hospitalized.
Interim Health Officer Jensen did not have that information but said that she could get that for her and that she would make sure that she had that before the next Council meeting. [It seems a little weird to me that she didn’t have that information. For a few meetings back in the fall she had been reporting it as a matter of course, but then just stopped including in in her reports. It seems like, at a time when Covid rates and hospitalizations are high, it might be useful for the Health Officer to be reporting about the, presumably, improved outcomes vaccinated individuals are experiencing.]
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) asked how many hospital beds and ICU beds were currently available.
Interim Health Officer Jensen said that when she looked at the WHA Covid dashboard that afternoon, it indicated that across the 13 hospitals in the Fox Valley HERC region there were 0 ICU beds, 0 medical surgical beds, and 0 intermediate care beds immediately available. She did note that was just a point in time and that was something that changes, but she did know that bed availability had been a big issue not only across the state but specifically in the Green Bay and Fox Valley region. [As of 12/16/2021 7 beds across 13 hospitals look to be available.]
No one had any further questions.
Mayor Woodford took a moment to say that he had received a question from a Council member regarding mask requirements in city facilities. He reiterated that masking inside city facilities was linked to the rate of transmission as defined by the CDC. “When we get below Substantial transmission which is per CDC guidance, that mask requirement will lift, or if the guidance changes on the use of face coverings we’ll adjust accordingly. I could tell you that based on the current rate of transmission in the community, we seem to be a long way from getting below substantial transmission unfortunately. So, we’ll continue to hold to that metric for our requirement and appreciate the vast majority of community members complying with that request as we continue to try to do what we can to look out for those around us and do the very best we can to get through the pandemic. And so, again really appreciate, again, the vast majority of our community joining us in those efforts in city facilities. I can tell you I’m not happy about having the requirement. I’m not happy about wearing masks. I don’t think any of us like it or appreciate it, but understand it’s an important thing for to do to look out for one another. So we’re going to keep doing our best.”
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=901917&GUID=B42EA738-EF61-405C-86AB-9EBF6DC315A9
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