#bluewave
Due to COVID -19
HQ OFFICE HOURS ARE CANCELED
Democratic Party of Vilas County
General Membership Meeting
2nd Monday of every month at 6:00 pm
We are now meeting on Zoom
Please contact us for info vilasdems@gmail.com
Calendar Progressive and Environmental Events in the Northwoods
General Membership Meeting
2nd Monday of every month at 6:00 pm
We are now meeting on Zoom
Please contact us for info vilasdems@gmail.com
Calendar Progressive and Environmental Events in the Northwoods
Round Table Discussion scheduled for May 9
DPVC Roundtable Discussion on Healthcare Issues, which was originally scheduled for May 9th, was cancelled due to the Safer at Home order.
Our new Democratic HQ remains closed until we are satisfied that the risk from COVID-19 has been abated.
Dr. Tom Gabert has given us his opening remarks which he would have delivered to begin our Round Table Discussion.
From Dr. Gabert:
A few months ago, I was asked to meet with you and talk about healthcare. Much has changed since then. Please accept some thoughts in writing.
We are always in a battle against infections. We have had many events linked to the infections caused by viruses and other bugs. Some people recall public pools closed during the summer due to outbreaks of polio, or classmates with deafness from Rubella (German measles). And some infectious diseases are so common that we are blind to their impact. For example, malaria kills 400,000 people worldwide every year. Influenza takes 40-60,000 annually in our country. COVID-19 is a once in a century event because of how fast it moves and the number of people effected.
COVID-19 is similar to other bugs that cause the common cold. We always tell patients that it is: “Three days to get it, three more to suffer and then 3 more to feel better”. For a few people who already have severe lung disease, these routine infections can be fatal but for nearly all of us it passes in a week. The scary part is that rarely CORONA virus strains mutate into a much more dangerous form. Still most patients will suffer only mild symptoms but a few in a thousand will require health care to recover. I should mention that without large testing protocols we cannot say how much more lethal COVID-19 is compared to a “bad” flu season.
Influenza is the typical example of a virus that changes over time. We need to update the vaccine each year to match the changes made. In contrast, Polio and Rubella are slow to change and for that reason we have been able to develop vaccines that give lifetime protection. It is not clear if a vaccine will be effective against COVID-19. It takes weeks to develop a vaccine and then several months to test it for safety and to confirm it protects people. Finally, we need time to develop and distribute a billion doses world-wide.
The initial process to prevent more deaths from any infectious disease is to detect it early and isolate individuals before they pass it to others. Regardless of past political decisions and program funding, I think we have been forced into the “shelter in place” order this Spring. Even with perfect international cooperation, we would not have a vaccine yet. We might have been able to narrow the quarantine to specific groups of people during specific dates. But in an open society of 300 million, spread would have happened. With the curve flattened, our health system has had time to build capacity and we hope prevent being overwhelmed. We anticipate the next few months will have small surges of infection. All of the local healthcare systems are communicating daily to maintain supplies and testing as we move into summer.
So we will be in some form of social distancing for months to come. We are not able to easily identify people who carry the disease but do not have symptoms. We do not know for sure how long the virus remains active in patients who have recovered. No one knows for sure what techniques work best to prevent transfer between people. We know hand washing and masks do make a difference. Avoiding large events will likely occur until 2021. It also helps to stay healthy with good choices in eating, maintaining physical activity and social connections. The CDC website www.cdc.gov has good information.
As I re-read this, I realize that it applies to communities that have resources. Wisconsin is more fortunate than many states but this outbreak has exposed significant gaps in health care resources as well as infrastructure such as access to the internet. The local school district needed to provide computers (Chromebooks) to 1/3 of their students, Wifi Hotspots to 5% and physically deliver materials to 11 households when no solution could be built. The disparity in access to healthcare across the country and within some populations mirrors data from other diseases. We need to encourage discussions around many topics as we deal with this crisis.
Stay safe,
Tom Gabert
Our new Democratic HQ remains closed until we are satisfied that the risk from COVID-19 has been abated.
Dr. Tom Gabert has given us his opening remarks which he would have delivered to begin our Round Table Discussion.
From Dr. Gabert:
A few months ago, I was asked to meet with you and talk about healthcare. Much has changed since then. Please accept some thoughts in writing.
We are always in a battle against infections. We have had many events linked to the infections caused by viruses and other bugs. Some people recall public pools closed during the summer due to outbreaks of polio, or classmates with deafness from Rubella (German measles). And some infectious diseases are so common that we are blind to their impact. For example, malaria kills 400,000 people worldwide every year. Influenza takes 40-60,000 annually in our country. COVID-19 is a once in a century event because of how fast it moves and the number of people effected.
COVID-19 is similar to other bugs that cause the common cold. We always tell patients that it is: “Three days to get it, three more to suffer and then 3 more to feel better”. For a few people who already have severe lung disease, these routine infections can be fatal but for nearly all of us it passes in a week. The scary part is that rarely CORONA virus strains mutate into a much more dangerous form. Still most patients will suffer only mild symptoms but a few in a thousand will require health care to recover. I should mention that without large testing protocols we cannot say how much more lethal COVID-19 is compared to a “bad” flu season.
Influenza is the typical example of a virus that changes over time. We need to update the vaccine each year to match the changes made. In contrast, Polio and Rubella are slow to change and for that reason we have been able to develop vaccines that give lifetime protection. It is not clear if a vaccine will be effective against COVID-19. It takes weeks to develop a vaccine and then several months to test it for safety and to confirm it protects people. Finally, we need time to develop and distribute a billion doses world-wide.
The initial process to prevent more deaths from any infectious disease is to detect it early and isolate individuals before they pass it to others. Regardless of past political decisions and program funding, I think we have been forced into the “shelter in place” order this Spring. Even with perfect international cooperation, we would not have a vaccine yet. We might have been able to narrow the quarantine to specific groups of people during specific dates. But in an open society of 300 million, spread would have happened. With the curve flattened, our health system has had time to build capacity and we hope prevent being overwhelmed. We anticipate the next few months will have small surges of infection. All of the local healthcare systems are communicating daily to maintain supplies and testing as we move into summer.
So we will be in some form of social distancing for months to come. We are not able to easily identify people who carry the disease but do not have symptoms. We do not know for sure how long the virus remains active in patients who have recovered. No one knows for sure what techniques work best to prevent transfer between people. We know hand washing and masks do make a difference. Avoiding large events will likely occur until 2021. It also helps to stay healthy with good choices in eating, maintaining physical activity and social connections. The CDC website www.cdc.gov has good information.
As I re-read this, I realize that it applies to communities that have resources. Wisconsin is more fortunate than many states but this outbreak has exposed significant gaps in health care resources as well as infrastructure such as access to the internet. The local school district needed to provide computers (Chromebooks) to 1/3 of their students, Wifi Hotspots to 5% and physically deliver materials to 11 households when no solution could be built. The disparity in access to healthcare across the country and within some populations mirrors data from other diseases. We need to encourage discussions around many topics as we deal with this crisis.
Stay safe,
Tom Gabert
