The Common Council met 02/17/2021. Although it did not take up almost the entire meeting as it sometimes has, the Covid 19 update did still feature prominently.
Health Officer Eggebrecht was quite pleased with the numbers. On 02/17, the total Appleton cases (confirmed and probable) stood at 7,823 total cases, 306 of which were active. There were 61 deaths.
Appleton is at a level we haven’t seen since August. Our two week burden is 309 which for the first time in months puts our city in the “High” category down from the “Very High” category. Appleton’s trajectory is also shrinking.
Health Officer Eggebrecht thinks that’s a real credit to everyone in our community who is maintaining the good mitigation strategies of wearing a mask, social distancing, and frequent handwashing. He believes people following those mitigation strategies is really what’s credited with the reduction in cases that we’re seeing.
[He’s made statements like this in the past and they’ve always bothered me a bit because to me community compliance with mitigation strategies looks far more lax now than it looked back in August. People seem to be going out more, restaurants seem fuller than they had been, and while I used to see 1 or 2 unmasked people at the store I now see 5+ without masks. But those are my anecdotal observations. I am curious what leads Health Officer Eggebrecht to think compliance is better now than it was in August before the spike. Be that as it may…]
Health Officer Eggebrecht stated that testing is still an important component of what they’re doing and they’re thankful for the National Guard site that’s at Reid Golf Course. Their February testing totals are very similar to January in terms of where they expect to be at the end of the month. It is important that people continue to get tested because that’s how the health department is able to do contact tracing and help people that are sick to stay away from others thus breaking the transmission in the community.
He then gave an update on the vaccine clinic. During the week of January 31 they provided 1,222 doses. That went up to 1,989 the next week. This week they anticipated that they would reach close to 1,700 additional vaccinations. Next week they’re preparing for 2,000 total vaccinations–1,000 people returning for their second dose and 1,000 new members.
He then opened things up for questions.
Alderperson Schultz wanted to know how long he foresaw the Expo Center site operating. He also wanted to know if Health Officer Eggebrecht had any sense of what the community participation rate in vaccinations would end up being.
Per Health Officer Eggebrecht, he could only give a guesstimate. Regarding the first question, he thought the Expo Center lent itself well to a community setting. He suspects that they’ll be vaccinating for several months and will go well into June at least–perhaps longer if a vaccine becomes licensed for youth (he doesn’t know when that will happen). He’s very optimistic that as more vaccine becomes available, they’ll be able to get a clearer picture of how many people within the community are interested.
He stated that they were going to do everything they can to remove barriers to getting the vaccine because they know the more people who are vaccinated, the better it is for the entire community because the virus will no longer have a human host to live in and spread to others. It’s really important for all that when our turn is there that we take advantage of the vaccine which has proven to be very effective.
Alderperson Schultz wanted to know if Health Officer Eggebrecht could give a sense of how taxed (I took that to be emotionally or physically taxed) the city staff, county staff, and volunteers are. He wanted to know what the program is for getting additional volunteers if needed.
Health Officer Eggebrecht said that, in addition to the people providing the actual vaccine, there is a whole cadre of people who are helping to support the clinic. They are coming from service club organizations and work place settings. Some work settings are donating staff by paying them to be a part of this. As the city moves toward having more vaccine, they’ve been nurturing a relationship with the Volunteer Center (https://www.volunteerfoxcities.org/) which is bringing another level of sophistication to onboarding volunteers both for medical and non-medical roles. They expect that as time goes on they’ll get better at recruitment and scheduling. The people who are volunteering at the Expo Center are jazzed up, as are the people who are coming to get vaccinated.
He encouraged individuals and work places to volunteer, but thought they continued to recruit a sufficient number of people. He said they were managing very well in terms of making the Expo Center a very safe and effective clinic for people to come get vaccinated at.
Alderperson Corey Otis thanked Health Officer Eggebrecht for his leadership and expressed gratitude toward all the city directors and staff and community members they have collaborated with. He was happy to see the slide that showed the number of vaccines that have been administered over the last weeks and wondered if that graph could be added to a daily or weekly social media post because there are a lot of people in the city who follow the daily number. He mentioned DHS has a vaccine tracker on its website. (https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/vaccine-data.htm)
Health Officer Eggebrecht thought that was a good suggestion and that they could certainly do that.
Thus ended the 02/17/2021 Covid update.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=825732&GUID=22F11D2D-8D53-4A36-8A26-542AAF26446E&Options=info|&Search=
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