Three years later, hospitals still gets COVID cases but 'they have less of an impact on our system,' Bellin doctor says
On Feb. 5, 2020, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in Dane County. By March 6, 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Winnebago County. Four days later, local health officials announced the virus was also detected in Brown and Outagamie counties.
This week marked three years since the start of the pandemic that signified tragedy and loss for many and changed the way people lived their lives.
As the region goes into the next year, the levels of community transmission are low and there are some reasons to celebrate.
Bellin Hospital doctor: 'We're in a really good place now'
“Thankfully, we don't have to think about COVID every single day like we had to early in the pandemic so that we could try to help protect our region and our population of people,” said Dr. Bradley Burmeister, an emergency physician at Bellin Hospital. “Looking back, I think we're in a really good place now. We still see some COVID cases, but they seem to be less severe. They have less of an impact on our system.”
On March 10, 25 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 in northeastern Wisconsin, the lowest number of hospitalizations since May 27, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association.
It took a lot of learning about the virus to figure out how to combat spread and the best ways to take care of people to get to where we are now, Burmeister said, highlighting the work of public health workers. There was also growth in people’s understandings of illness and precautions for prevention, he said.
In the beginning
Gov. Tony Evers issued a “safer-at-home” order March 24, 2020. For some students, the order coincided around their spring breaks so they were excited to get a couple more weeks off school. They didn’t know it would turn into months of remote learning.
Employees left the office thinking things would be back to normal in a couple weeks.
But slowly, the cancellations and postponements started rolling in — concerts, festivals, church services, sporting events, extracurriculars wouldn’t be rescheduled until further notice. High school and college graduation ceremonies would be over a screen. Kids didn’t know when they would see their grandparents again.
Buildings, airports, and streets were suddenly empty. The world got quiet and shut down.
In April 2020, Brown County opened a community testing site at the Resch Center as more health systems also provided drive-through testing sites in the region.
By September 2020, Lambeau Field was prepping for the first home opener without fans in the stadium.
The virus showed no signs of stopping. Residents, nurses, and doctors began publicly pleading with Green Bay and Fox Valley residents to do what they could to reduce spread. Variants started tearing their way through the local health system. The delta variant outbreak in summer 2021 and the omicron surge wreaked havoc throughout the fall into 2022.
Vaccines first reached Green Bay in December 2020. Doses were administered to Prevea and HSHS health care workers — finally there was a shot of hope. As schools reopened and employers returned to the office, the world started opening up again.
Each year since then, more and more activities returned to their pre-pandemic pace.
'Put more of the joy back into life': The future and vaccinations
Whether it was staying home or volunteering to make masks for the neighborhood, those efforts probably saved lives.
"Just what the communities did together to help us all get through this is something to celebrate," said Dr. Mark Cockley, chief clinical officer at ThedaCare.
The death toll has been enormous. As of March 15, 2023, 16,383 Wisconsinites have died of the virus. According to state data as of March 16, the confirmed COVID-19 deaths by county in central and northeastern Wisconsin:
Marathon: 485
Brown: 462
Outagamie: 389
Winnebago: 357
Sheboygan: 295
Fond du Lac: 285
Wood: 242
Manitowoc: 187
Portage: 165
In ThedaCare hospitals, about five to 10 people are coming in each week with COVID-19, most of them with less severe cases of the virus due to their vaccinations, Cockley said. Some employees are also calling in sick with COVID-19 symptoms, so it's important to continue taking some precautions, he said.
Wisconsinites should stay up to date on vaccinations, including the bivalent COVID-19 booster, he said. The booster shot provides protection specifically for the omicron variant. What was once a race to find an available dose, getting a vaccine appointment has now become quicker because of its ample supply.
In the northeast region, only just over 18% of residents got a booster shot, according to DHS. About half of the region's 65 and older got the booster.
About four in 10 people also have yet to get the original two-dose series of a COVID-19 vaccine.
More:As COVID turns 3, experts worry where the next pandemic will come from – and if we'll be ready
For subscribers:Health experts optimistic that even if COVID cases rise, hospitalizations and deaths should remain under control
"There's not anything saying that this virus can't mutate to something that's even worse again. We know it's very infectious," Cockley said.
“Whether it's visiting family, vacations, trips they used to take, the family ritual trips, or the traditions that we carried out that we modified in the last couple of years,” Cockley said. “How do we get back to some of those again to put more of the joy back into life.”
Benita Mathew is a health and science reporter for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. Contact her at bmathew@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @benita_mathew.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Lives lost, changed due to COVID-19 in northeastern, central Wisconsin
