- Hi, I'm Christy McDonald and here's what's coming up this week on One Detroit where Michigan stands when it comes to COVID numbers with Beaumont's Dr. Nick Gilpin and then an in depth report on what it means to be a COVID long hauler, the diagnosis and treatments, plus new numbers show women leaving the workforce again.

How pilot childcare programs aimed to health.

It's all coming up this week on One Detroit.

- [Narrator 1] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Narrator 2] Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV, The Kresge Foundation, community foundation for Southeast Michigan.

- [Narrator 3] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV, among the state's largest foundations, committed to Michigan focused giving.

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(upbeat music) - Hi there, and welcome to One Detroit I'm Christy McDonald, so glad that you are with me this week, coming up, we're all learning how to mitigate risk when it comes to COVID with precautions and vaccinations.

So where do we stand now in terms of infection across the state?

We check in with Dr. Nick Gilpin, the medical director for infection prevention for Beaumont health.

Then we are taking a closer look at COVID long haulers.

What is happening to people here in Southeast Michigan, who had COVID, but continued to have lingering and many times debilitating after effects of the disease, doctors and patients are sharing their stories with us, and also ahead on the show, new numbers from September point to more women leaving the workforce.

I talk with Cheryl Birkman from the Michigan Women's Commission about pilot programs in the state to help with childcare.

It is all ahead on the show this week, and we're starting off with a check of COVID rates in Michigan right now, One Detroit will Glover spoke with Dr. Nick Gilpin, the medical director for infection prevention at Beaumont.

- What are the rates looking like?

- So all summer long, we were well below 5% starting in early August that number started to tick up and I like that number because it, it sort of precludes what's happening in our hospitals and our ICUs.

So as that number starts to tick up that corresponds nicely to what we expect to see in the hospitals, and sure enough, hospital numbers started to tick up throughout August, and we eclipsed 5% test positivity in the Metro Detroit area, Oakland Macomb and Wayne county.

Throughout the month of September, community test positivity numbers have ranged anywhere from around five to 10%, which is pretty high.

Just again, for perspective, when you go back to some of our big surges like March and April, or if you go back more than a year ago to, to some of our earliest surges, those test positivity numbers were in the twenties.

So relative to where we were, I think you can say we're a little better, but we're still experiencing what I would call moderate to substantial community transmission.

- Obviously there are kids going, going back to school.

So is there any concern about a spike in transmission?

Just because this is a, you know, a time of year where people normally get sick people normally catch colds and all sorts of things.

- Yeah.

I do expect to see more COVID activity as the weather cools down, as people start gathering more indoors, as the complacency sets in, the masks aren't being worn, kids back in school as you mentioned, I think those are all things that can potentially drive the transmission up.

Now, I also have to say that this whole experience has taught me nothing, if not to be humble, because there's a lot of characteristics about this virus and this pandemic that we don't completely understand.

It makes sense to think that we'll see more transmission when the weather cools down because those favor, those conditions favor more transmission.

But at the same time, we've also seen parts of the country that have had incredibly big surges during warm weather times where people are spending time outdoors more so it doesn't follow a perfect pattern.

But yeah, I, as I've said before, I think we would be foolish to not prepare for a potential fourth wave.

- What's the idea behind getting a booster?

It seems pretty obvious, but I just want you to, you know, elaborate on that a little bit.

- The data has shown that after about five months, the amount of protection that you have from the vaccine dwindles slightly, and your risk of getting a COVID infection seems to increase.

Now your risk of having severe complications from infection still remains extremely low.

In other words, even after that five month mark, you still have good protection from getting hospitalized, ending up in the ICU, ending up on a ventilator, and that's an important point to mention, but your total protection from COVID is less.

So with that in mind, and with the fact that we do have still a lot of virus in our communities, the ACIP, which is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is an independent committee of the CDC concluded that boosters are recommended for certain populations, specifically folks that are less likely to have a robust immune response from the, from the vaccine older folks, folks over the age of 60, people with compromised immune systems and people who work in high risk positions like healthcare workers and teachers etc.

benefit from getting a booster jab to help bring that immunity back up to those nice high levels of where they once were and continue to provide that protection.

I suspect it won't be long before we start talking about booster jabs for the entire population, but as of right now, the data really doesn't point us in that direction just yet.

- So that's where we stand now with infections, deaths and recoveries, but almost two years into the pandemic, millions of people are still suffering from COVID.

They're called long haulers, dealing with lingering symptoms many months after catching the virus, medical research is ongoing, but what do we know now?

And what more is there to learn?

One Detroit's Bill Kubota has been talking with some of the experts here in Southeast Michigan about long COVID, along with patients who are still trying to shake an illness that has attacked their bodies in some, in very different ways.

- [Narrator 5] Long COVID the affliction suffered by those who pulled through the initial infection estimated to be one of every three or four sickened by the virus.

- We've had multi-millions of cases of COVID in this country.

I mean let's do the math and 20% of those individuals, we're talking about millions of individuals who have long COVID and those individuals are really impaired.

- I was a healthy young woman, had no troubles whatsoever, and then this happened all of a sudden.

- You've got people with anxiety and depression and different mood disorders because of what has just happened in their life.

- We don't have two people that are, that have the same exact symptoms and everyone's recovering at a much different recovery rate as well.

- The minute I see someone and I don't immediately know what they have, it's a strange symptom.

I'll think this is probably another case of COVID and it almost always is.

- [Narrator 5] Last month, the National Institutes of Health announced it would do a population study of long COVID cases Nationwide.

The website says progress takes people like you.

Learning comes from listening.

- The most commonly things we see are generalized fatigue, brain fog, not being able to return to work, not being able to complete their activities of daily living.

What we find is they can have fluctuation or changes in their blood pressure.

- [Narrator 5] Dr. Eva Feldman and Neurology Professor at University of Michigan medicine, she's found much of the body's nervous system can be affected by the virus.

- It's such an interesting virus, It's like a chameleon, it can do almost anything.

- [Narrator 5] In Ann Arbor they're checking long COVID blood samples for markers indicating inflammation, along with the examination of vital organs.

- Talk to me about how things are going in general.

- [Narrator 5] Henry Ford health system, speech language pathologist, Anjulie load hobby is working with long COVID patient Jackie O'Connell who's struggling with memory issues.

- When I have everything set out, it's there and I do it.

But when it's something I have to actually think about that's when I, - It's almost like your brain shuts down.

- Yeah yeah.

- O'Connell got COVID this January she lost her taste and smell but no congestion.

She'd been a case manager for a healthcare provider, but she's not working now.

- Today I'm going to introduce you to some acronyms and walk you through different memory strategies that you can use.

With Jackie, she stayed at home for two weeks, returned to her job and realized, whoa, like I'm, I can't do this.

Like I can't even look at the computer screen without freaking out.

What does that stand for?

- I don't remember.

- Take a second.

Even if you're like I have no idea I'm drawing a blank.

Take a second.

What things are you going to do to help yourself remember?

I think the surprising thing for me is that all of the patients I'm seeing with brain fog were not hospitalized and they had mild cases.

- [Narrator 5] Load hobbyists sees people with strokes, brain injuries, Alzheimer, that sort of thing, add long COVID to the list.

- It just makes sense to have them go through this cognitive rehab program that we've been doing for other patients before COVID and to help treat some of these long haul patients.

- Like I even have to do a resume for the disability.

I'm like, it didn't make sense.

It all threw me.

- Was it more helpful after you went through it with your sister?

- Yeah.

I'm going back over there this evening and she's filling out all the papers with me.

- They're not able to remember some of the conversations that they're having.

You know, if you look at these people and you run into them on the street you don't see any physical impairment from COVID.

- And we as physicians can help them symptomatically.

We're doing like diet, exercise, occupational physical therapy, but we don't have any magic pill or cure for this.

So it's affecting a lot of people.

- [Narrator 5] Physical therapist, Carolyn Brierley, with the Detroit medical centers Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

She too has been seeing a lot of long haulers.

- Can do nothing about how to treat this prior to it hitting.

And now we're, it's, it's going to be a constant learning, you know, on what we can and cannot do.

What is best practice for our patients.

- So I got COVID in the beginning of May, I luckily enough had a mild case of it.

So it was kind of like a bad cold essentially.

- [Narrator 5] Detroiter Kennedy Robinson age 23, getting ready to graduate from college and getting physical therapy three times a week at the rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

- I have never felt so tired in my arms ever.

So you don't really realize how much of your muscles you use until they're taken away from you.

- For some of our long haulers, we were seeing them in physical therapy for sometimes four to six months because they're, they're so de-conditioned when they come to us that we now have to build that back up we have to build muscle strength, we have to build coordination, we have to teach them how to breathe properly again.

- So in Kennedy's case what's occurred is affected what are known as her peripheral nerves.

Well as likely possibly her muscles.

- I couldn't do like basic things such as dressing myself, feeding myself.

- [Narrator 5] Robinson had no cognitive issues to report.

It was nerves tore legs and more so her arm.

- As you can clearly see I struggle with getting my hands up.

They did lots of blood tests Did MRI scans, CT scans, and everything came up negative.

Everything came up clear, like nothing was wrong with me.

Every time I would do things for them, they would look at me like I was like, like I was faking it, - [Narrator 5] Not an uncommon experience for some long haulers.

Robinson found another opinion from Dr. Feldman at Michigan medicine, a diagnosis just part of the challenge paying for it can be a problem too.

- I have patients who filed for disability and they're not getting approved for it because you know, they're able to wake up in the morning and make their cup of coffee and you know, drive to the doctor and those things, those things are fine.

But when it comes to doing their cognitively taxing job, they are not able to do that.

Are you making lists?

- No, I honestly haven't been.

- Okay.

We just don't know what's happening, whether this is, you know, partly psychosomatic, this is actually something going on in the brain, whether it's a component of both, which is probably the likely case.

I think we all just want to know more about it and look at the patterns across patients to try and figure out the best way to treat them.

- Now I've progressed a lot comparing from how I was back in June, where I could only lift about maybe up to here with my arms in June.

Now I can go all the way up to here.

My boyfriend has asked me multiple times about how long this would last and I always tell him like, I honestly don't know, it just really depends.

Honestly, if recovery time would be, could be a from either six months to almost three years.

- So as we began to better understand that this was a real syndrome and really happening after COVID, that's happening in parallel with the patients, you know, really forming support groups and beginning to collect their own data.

So we can understand those symptoms that are occurring.

- [Narrator 5] Patients conferring with each other online Detroit area physical therapist, Ted Dechane got COVID early on March last year, his initial sickness passed then came a persistent fatigue.

- It wasn't until I connected with a few other therapists on Twitter who were experiencing the same thing that we kind of realized that this was more than just you know our acute COVID infection.

We were having something that was continuing beyond those two weeks that we thought we were better in.

- [Narrator 5] Dechane's online connections led to a support group long COVID physio, 200 members now, all physical therapists with long COVID from around the world, talking about things that turn up in the media months later.

- What have you learned from some of these online conversations that may be a, is a little even ahead of the curve of some of the medical establishment.

- Yeah we were really fortunate to kind of connect with some people who had suffered from post viral illnesses prior to COVID-19.

You know, we've seen these kinds of similar things happen after Epstein-Barr infections after the first SARS virus in Toronto, after Ebola.

So we connected with a lot of people early on who were already experiencing those kinds of post viral illnesses and used what they knew worked to kind of help our treatment.

So.

- [Narrator 5] Dechane's group finds a physical rehab regimen not so useful in many cases, cases like his.

Finding, it's a matter of resting a lot more a year and a half later, he's at about 85% strength of where he was before he got the bug.

- I just don't know if the government is really monitoring the amount of burden this is placing on our society as a whole and if the U.S. knew the burden that this could cause then they might be doing a little better job about trying to get a handle on it.

- [Narrator 5] The economic damage from long COVID so far hard to say the NIH has about a half billion dollars to do their population study.

Add that to more than a billion dollars for other studies over the next four years.

- And it's clear that not everyone gets silver post COVID syndrome, at least not that we're seeing yet, but again the disease is new, right?

This is all very new and young.

- There are going to be other people that are coming in with the exact same problem that I'm having and again they're probably thinking like, oh, well this is new we don't know what's going on and actually yes you do, because I am that person that was dealing with the exact same thing.

It's like essentially like learn from me.

- Turning now to the future of work and new jobs numbers from September that show the childcare crisis and Delta variant is wreaking havoc on women and work.

Last month, over 300,000 women over the age of 20 left the workforce, and according to the National Women's Law Center, this is the biggest drops in September 2020 when women left jobs in droves because they couldn't count on schooling because of the pandemic, the Delta variance, no vaccines for younger kids and lack of available and affordable childcare continues to drive this decline in women in the workforce.

Childcare plays a major role and Michigan is funding pilot programs to increase access.

I spoke with Cheryl Bergman, the CEO of the Michigan Women's Commission up at the Mackinaw Policy Conference.

How do you see things right now for for women in the workforce?

- Nationally millions have left the workforce, in Michigan since February of 2020, 229,300 to be exact, women have left the workforce entirely, nearly just over 7% more than men.

And anecdotally we can tell that that is due to childcare and needing to take care of their kids and their family etc.

and there is some data nationally that reinforces that it's the women with the small children, school aged children and younger who are leaving the workforce.

- Some of the statistics that I saw from the study from McKinsey and Leanin.org was that one in four decided that they may not even ever go back or they may totally change the trajectory of their careers and I think when we look at some of those numbers and hear a lot of the stories of women saying, I just need a little bit more flexibility, or I need something entirely, entirely different.

What are you hearing?

- That's exactly right.

We're hearing we need predictable schedules, show like people who work in the service industry, they need to know a little more, their schedules can't be changing all the time.

We don't have enough affordable accessible childcare and that is the one thing that Michigan Women's Commission has really been focused on.

We, there are deserts in our state where there's not childcare and especially since pandemic, the pandemic more childcare facilities have shut down.

They don't have the childcare workers.

We don't pay our childcare workers a livable wage.

So there's all of the, all of those issues and that's what women are looking for and need.

- And it's really an economic issue as well and when we say, well you know, they've gotta make different choices.

You know, they've got to make choices to stay home and that's just how it goes.

But the impact on our economy overall, the impact on the overall health of families is, is significant here.

- That's correct.

And our business community is realizing that this is an economic issue and our legislature and our policy makers.

So one thing that the women's commission is doing right now, we are implemented a program called the, My Try Share Childcare Pilot Program and it's a bipartisan program.

In fact, I just got word that the legislature has just voted in the budget to a specific.

- So, it's part of the budget right now?

- Yeah, it was part the budget in 2021 and it's been expanded for the governor's recommendation.

So we're piled in three regions of the state right now and the idea is the employer pays a third of childcare.

The employee pays a third and the state of Michigan pays a third of the cost and so we are with this expansion, I believe we'll be able to expand to two or three more regions in the state.

- Are we going to be able to see more programs like that, or when we're seeing the stimulus money coming in from the federal government, are we going to start to see that in different areas that will help families will help women have the ability to get back into the workforce?

- Yes, yes.

So the American Rescue Plan has afforded $1.4 billion dollars to Michigan, specifically for childcare and in June, the governor outlined her recommendations on how to spend that and it still hasn't gotten the approval through the legislature yet but we expect that to be coming soon, but it would increase the subsidy for families.

So it would include more families eligible for our childcare subsidy in the state about 150,000 more families.

It provides money for directly to providers to expand their businesses.

I mean, these are businesses, small businesses, 95% are owned by women the childcare providers in the state, 40% of those are women of color and these are small businesses and they need the same kind of stimulus.

- And they need infusion.

- And infusion, so this is what it would do, increase the pay for our childcare providers, give the providers the training etc.

that they need to increase their businesses.

- So what are some of the other programs that you're working on right now outside of, of childcare and shoring up those services?

- We just actually received a grant from the Department of Labor.

Nationally, The Women's Bureau.

To, it's called the fair, Fostering Access Rights in the Workplace and equity in the workplace.

So they've given them to the states, a couple of states, we were one of them.

And what we'll do is partner with Detroit Disability Power, Southeast Michigan United way, and Mothering Justice in Detroit to get word out to the women of the state and low-income workers, their rights in the workplace, also how they can get childcare subsidy.

A lot of women sometimes don't even know where to go or how to find it.

So our job with this grant is to get that information out to the women of the state.

- Let's talk a little bit about women who are maybe in mid-level management or mid-level jobs looking to kind of go and be mentored to the next level.

Do we have a lot of things in place in businesses that are recognizing women's voices in the workplace and trying to elevate them?

What are some of the conversations around inclusion and the deliberate, deliberate decisions that need to be made on the part of business owners and managers to promote?

- Yeah, there's, there's a lot of conversation around that and I'm sure you're familiar with Inforum in the state of Michigan and they're, you know, according to their 2020 women in leadership report in corporate women of color in the state of Michigan are still at 2% of named executive officers and that hasn't changed since 2003 and since 2007, all women have increased their leadership at executive levels from like 12% to 19%.

So we're, we're making strides.

- There's growth.

It's not going backwards.

- We're not going backwards but it's still pretty static so there's a lot of conversations about that.

Many companies are doing a lot of things around diversity and inclusion and working on those issues.

- What are some of the conversations that you are having up here at Mackinaw?

- Well, I've been having conversations with some of the foundations who are interested in helping us with the pilot program, the Tri Share Pilot Program, and perhaps doing some private funding to expand that program and talking to the business community about the importance of more women in leadership.

I mean, that is one of our key things with the women's commission is all across the board is having more women in leadership positions, whether it's at the business level or the nonprofit level or academia elected office.

So that is something that we're focused on.

- For more of our stories on the future of work and COVID just head to our website Onedetroitpbs.org that is going to do it for us this week.

Thanks so much for joining me, take care of yourself and I'll see you next time.

- [Christy McDonald] You can find more Onedetroitpbs.org or subscribe to our social media channels and sign up for our One Detroit newsletter.

- [Narrator 1] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Narrator 2] Support for this program has provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford fund for journalism at Detroit Public TV, The Kresge Foundation, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

- [Narrator 3] The DTE foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV, among the state's largest foundations, committed to Michigan focused giving.

We support organizations, that are doing exceptional work in our state, visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- [Narrator 4] Business leaders for Michigan, dedicated to making Michigan, a top 10 state for jobs, personal income, and a healthy economy, also brought to you by, and Viewers Like You.

(upbeat outro music)