Doctors reflect on how far we’ve come since Wisconsin’s first COVID case two years ago

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) – It has now been two years since the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in Wisconsin. For many in the healthcare field, those two years felt like 20, given the stress and tension caused by the virus.

At the start of 2020, the idea of ​​carrying something like a vaccine card or mask with you wherever you go might have seemed unlikely when you first heard about the coronavirus in China.

The first case of COVID-19 in Wisconsin was diagnosed on January 30, 2020 and laboratory confirmed six days later on February 5. It was only the 12th confirmed case in the country.

“Once when we realized that more than half of the people with this virus were transmitting without any symptoms, that’s when it became pretty clear that this was something that could be very difficult. to contain,” Ajay Sethi, associate professor of population health sciences at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, said.

Health experts have acknowledged that these two years have been difficult, filled with loss and struggle, but technology and manpower have accelerated the development of a vaccine in about a year, which usually takes five in 10 years.

Since then, advances in mRNA vaccines have helped tremendously, and the technology could expand to other diseases. Moderna, for example, has just started trials of an HIV vaccine.

“It’s great that we’ve put so much science forward, but I think the real story over the last two years is all the effort at the bedside,” Dr Rai said. “All the efforts of clinics to test people. These are the people we should probably talk about today.

“It gives me hope for a future,” said Dr. Jeff Pothof, director of quality at UW Health. “A future where COVID-19 will likely never go away but we can manage with likely annual vaccinations that protect against the most common variants.”

Advances in testing have also been helpful, but today researchers described a downside to rapid home tests.

“One problem though is that many people who test with a rapid test don’t report their cases to public health, so our case trends are grossly underestimated,” Sethi explained. “So when we see this spike happening right now with the omicron variant, just recognize that that’s maybe only a third of all the transmission that’s happening.”

Dr Rai said in early 2020 he remembers how much work it took to set up their first public testing site and the stress of not having enough swabs for all the tests. Now, he says the supply issue has improved significantly, even in the face of the omicron surge.

The latest data from DHS today shows that the seven-day averages of cases and the positivity rate continue to decline with only 2,400 positive cases added today, but the seven-day average of total vaccine doses per day is falling. also.

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