Board Of Health Receives Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report – Health Officer Sepers Tells Board 2023-24 Covid Season Was Much Worse That 2022-2023 Year

The Board of Health met 02/14/2024. One of the information items they received was the Respiratory Virus Surveillance and Waste Water Report.

This item was discussed only briefly with Health Officer Charles Sepers highlighting some points he found notable.

I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:

He said that, state-wide though the end of January and into early February, they saw very high rates of Emergency Room visits in children 0-17 with influenza. He noted that the rates of people coming to the Emergency Room with Covid 19 and RSV were also starting to come down.

He went on to say, “I just want to kind of identify that […] we’re seeing, like, a perfectly cyclical or seasonal display of COVID-19 in comparison with RSV and influenza. So, thinking about it not as cold and flu season, but respiratory virus season for sure, affecting all three of those viruses.”

Those numbers were also reflected in the Covid-19 wastewater data which showed they had peaked and were now coming down. Health Officer Sepers noted that the Covid-19 numbers for 2023-2024 were much higher than they had been in 2023-2023 and said, “If we’re, you know, looking in a historical fashion, we see that it was a much worse seasonal year for COVID-19 this year than what it was locally for COVID-19 in 2022.”

The board members did not have any questions or comments.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1161520&GUID=898DE6B2-8B60-44C5-A283-278B82FE0B49

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