The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Wednesday, September 16, 2020 — 5

Six months later: what treating COVID-19 looks like

Thursday marks six months since 

the first positive COVID-19 tests 
were detected in Michigan. Since 
then, health care professionals at 
Michigan Medicine adapted to an 
unprecedented public health crisis 
that has tested the strength of the 
hospital’s resources and employees.

During the first three months of 

the pandemic, cases in Michigan 
skyrocketed, reaching a peak of 
around 1,000 cases on March 30. 
Health care workers experienced 
great personal tragedy and loss as 
a result of the pandemic and said 
they made it through thanks to the 
support of colleagues.

For many health care systems 

across 
the 
country, 
the 
last 

six months have also resulted 
in extreme financial losses — 
Michigan Medicine is no exception. 
In May, Marschall Runge, chief 
executive 
officer 
of 
Michigan 

Medicine, announced the hospital 
would begin layoffs and furloughs 
affecting around 1,400 full-time 
employees in order to promote the 

hospital’s economic recovery.

The Daily spoke with five 

physicians from Michigan Medicine 
to discuss progress made in treating 
the disease and the hardships faced 
by health care professionals over the 
past six months. 

‘Nobody 
knew 
just 
how 

contagious this was or how risky it 
was’

According to Robert Dickson, 

assistant professor in the Medical 
School 
who 
specializes 
in 

pulmonary and critical care, nobody 
knew the best way to tackle the 
impending crisis when it first began. 

“A lot of that initial speculation I 

think was driven by uncertainty and 
a lack of experience,” Dickson said. 
“Early on in the COVID crisis we 
just didn’t have data, we didn’t even 
have observational cohorts to tell 
us what we were seeing. So in the 
absence of that, all you have to go on 
is personal experience and expert 
opinion.”

Physicians said the lack of clear 

evidence and tested treatments 
created confusion when attempting 
to help their patients recover from 
COVID-19. Many said they were 

working outside of their areas of 
expertise to treat the disease. 

Hallie Prescott, a pulmonary 

and critical care physician working 
in 
Michigan 
Medicine’s 
main 

Intensive Care Unit and the Ann 
Arbor Veterans Affairs Medical 
Center, said a six-month learning 
curve gradually eased their fears 
about the virus, and gave time for 
doctors to determine effective 
treatments. 

“In the beginning, nobody knew 

just how contagious this was or how 
risky it was to be working in these 
ICUs, so there was a high level of 
fear about people contracting the 
virus and among people working 
outside of their normal scope,” 
Prescott said. “As we learned more, 
we increasingly realized that the 
normal ways that we take care of 
people in terms of life support were 
appropriate.”

Since March, physicians around 

the world have learned about the 
best ways to treat patients with 
COVID-19. 
Various 
treatments 

fell in and out of use, including 
hydroxychloroquine, 
remdesivir 

and most recently, corticosteroids. 

Dickson 
said 
some 
of 
the 

practices he and other critical care 
physicians used six months ago are 
no longer used to combat the virus.

“I think we’re smarter about 

some of the therapies we offer — 
there are some things that we were 
doing back in March and April 
that had no data to support them,” 

Dickson said. “One lesson we’ve 
learned is that nothing competes 
with the standard, evidence-based 
practices.”

‘There’s no precexdent in my or 

anyone else’s experience’

Several health care providers 

expressed pride in their responses to 
the massive demand for care. Robert 

Hyzy, medical director of Michigan 
Medicine’s critical care unit, said 
neither he nor any of his colleagues 
anticipated or even fathomed an 
event like the COVID-19 pandemic.

HANNAH MACKAY

Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

After four years of negotiations, 

local officials have come to a 
proposed agreement on a cleanup 
plan for the Gelman dioxane plume 
on Aug. 31. 

The plume’s history goes back 

to 1958, when the late Charles 
Gelman 
began 
manufacturing 

micro-porous filters in the local 
Ann Arbor area. A chemical called 
1,4-dioxane was used during the 
process, and eventually seeped into 
soil, polluting groundwater at the 
company’s Scio Township plant.

Over 
decades, 
the 
dioxane 

spread into a large plume of 
underground 
contamination 
in 

northwest Ann Arbor. Dioxane was 
deemed a probable carcinogen and 
has been found to cause kidney and 
liver damage as well as respiratory 
problems.

The newly proposed settlement 

with polluter Gelman Science Inc. 
details a thorough plan for a cleanup 
protocol, which includes expanding 
prohibition zones and increasing 
well installments to monitor the 
plume’s migration through Ann 
Arbor area’s groundwater systems.

The 
settlement’s 
executive 

summary states there will be 
“a significant increase in the 
obligations imposed on Gelman 
to 
investigate 
and 
remediate 

1,4-dioxane contamination at and 
migrating away from the Gelman 
site.”

Prohibition 
zones 
were 

also redefined in the proposed 
settlement. These zones prohibit 
the use of groundwater in particular 
areas due to the heightened levels 
of dioxane. Additionally, the state’s 
dioxane assessment for drinking 
water saw a significant decrease 
from 85 parts per billion to 7.2 
parts per billion. Areas within the 
prohibition zone show levels of 
dioxane greater than 7.2 parts per 
billion.

Ann Arbor City Councilmember 

Ali Ramwali, D-Ward 5, said 
this agreement is the result of 
years of negotiations, going back 
long before he assumed office 
in 2018. Regardless, Ramwali 
acknowledged that this proposal is 
not perfect.

“I think it ultimately is the best 

agreement the intervenors’ and the 
polluters’ attorneys can come up 
to,” Ramwali said. “And ultimately, 
this agreement is the summation 
in the totality of improvements 
that we can make on the current 
situation. Does it satisfy all our 

concerns? No, it does not.”

In 2016, the city officially filed 

a lawsuit against Gelman and has 
been negotiating since then. The 
proposed 
settlement, 
however, 

has drawn criticism from local 
residents who wish to see the 
federal government intervene.

Dan Bicknell, an environmental 

remediation 
professional 
and 

former Environmental Protection 
Agency Superfund enforcement 
officer, discovered the Gelman 
plume when he was completing 
research at the University of 
Michigan in 1984. He is now the 
president of Global Environment 
Alliance LLC and an Ann Arbor 
resident.

“The state government has 

failed us for almost 40 years now 
on this project,” Bicknell said. “And 
the idea that a local government, 
who has no expertise whatsoever, 
can do a better job at compelling 
this very, again, resistant polluter 
to do the right thing is not logical.”

Larry Lemke, a hydrogeologist 

and professor at Central Michigan 
University, was hired as an expert 
for the Ann Arbor, Scio Township, 
Washtenaw County and Huron 
River Watershed Council’s lawsuit 
against Gelman. In a series of 
videos, Lemke gave a thorough 
rundown of the proposal, saying 
that the contamination will likely 
remain in the groundwater system 
in the future.

“Although concentrations have 

decreased over time, we can expect 
dioxane to stay in the groundwater 
and continue to spread for many 
years to come,” Lemke said.

Ramwali clarified that cleanup 

of the plume will never result in 
completely pristine water levels, 
regardless of who is in charge of it.

“The way that the dioxane in 

the natural world, the complexities 
of 
our 
underground 
aquifer 

system, the geology and again, 
the way the dioxane behaves in 
these conditions, we will never 
get to pristine levels ever in our 
lifetime,” Ramlawi said. “It’s just 
scientifically, 
technologically 

impossible at this point in history 
to get those underground aquifers 
back to pristine levels.”

Bicknell said the community 

is not asking for pristine water 
levels, but rather reverting the 
groundwater to drinking water 
state. He also noted that a Gelman 
feasibility study found that it was 
not an impossible feat.

Chants from picket lines echo 

from campus building to campus 
building. But step off campus — 
where most students are tuning 
into remote classes — and that 
echo quickly fades.

Graduate 
students 
at 
the 

University of Michigan are on 
strike, demanding more stringent 
COVID-19 precautions in the 
fall semester reopening plan and 
reforms in policing on campus. 
Many 
of 
those 
striking 
are 

Graduate Student Instructors who 
lead and assist with undergraduate 
classes. 

The 
Graduate 
Employees’ 

Organization, 
the 
union 

representing 
graduate 
student 

instructors and graduate student 
staff 
assistants, 
has 
asked 

undergraduate students to observe 
the picket line in solidarity with 
the strike, meaning they should 
not attend class. Central Student 
Government 
also 
encouraged 

students not to cross the picket 
line in a resolution passed Tuesday 
night.

When LSA sophomore Lindsay 

Adams heard this call-to-action, 
skipping class was a no brainer. 

“I’m fortunate enough that I’m 

in a position where I can do that 
without sabotaging myself,” she 
said. “I think this is a really, really 
important cause so I’m planning 

on standing behind the strike 
members.”

Some 
students 
who 
aren’t 

strongly opinionated about the 
strike, such as LSA sophomore 
Lorenzo 
Luna, 
were 
left 
to 

decide whether or not to stand 
in solidarity with the GSIs by 
skipping classes.

“I feel like I don’t really have 

a place in (the strike), because I 
myself am not a GSI,” Luna said. 
“Me skipping class won’t really 
do much to give the GSIs more 
leverage in their negotiations.”

Engineering senior Hannah 

Lowenthal said she’d be willing to 
skip class, but only if her classes’ 
GSIs ask her to do so.

“If my GSI expressed to me that, 

‘I am part of this movement and I 
don’t feel comfortable attending 
classes,’ 
I 
would 
be 
totally 

supportive of that,” Lowenthal 
said. “I would go with whatever he 
wants.”

Students who have decided to 

join the strike must navigate a 
question few have faced before: 
Where does the picket line stop 
when classes are taught online? 

LSA 
sophomore 
Renee 

Boudreau said it would be harder 
for students to ignore the strike if 
classes were in-person.

“The lines are really blurred 

with everything being online,” she 
said. “If you were to be going into 
class, you wouldn’t want to cross 
the picket line.” 

LSA junior Alyssa Thomas is 

an active supporter of the GEO. 
She attended the union’s die-in 
protest of the University’s fall 
reopening protocols, boycotted 
her synchronous classes this week 
in solidarity with the strike and 
expressed support for Residential 
Staff — of which she is a member 
—voting to strike alongside GEO 
as well. 

Thomas 
said 
attending 

asynchronous 
lectures 
and 

completing assigned class material 
does not take away from the strike. 

“Because I don’t have an 

attendance responsibility, it would 
be pointless for me to not go to 
those asynchronous lectures,” she 
said. “If we are to get a University 
response by the end of the week, 
I would still be responsible for 
obtaining all the information. It’s 
basically a matter of ‘do I want 
to do it now, or do I want to do it 
later?’”

LSA junior Andie Gardiner 

decided to do her asynchronous 
classes and homework outside of 
the GEO’s official picket hours.

“Even if it’s asynchronous and 

the lectures are pre-recorded, I 
would like to just show my support 
by doing that outside of when the 
strike line is visible,” Gardiner 
said.

 Lowenthal said she’d be more 

likely to boycott if her classes 
weren’t online. 

“There is some discomfort 

walking solo past a big crowd of 
people protesting for something,” 
she said. “At that point, I probably 
wouldn’t go to class.”

GEO Secretary Amir Fleishman 

said undergraduate support is a 
vital component of this strike’s 
success. He said undergraduates 
have attended picketing events 
and spoken at GEO events.

“Undergraduate 
support 
is 

so, so important for us because 
we’re out there for everybody,” 
Fleishman 
said. 
“Inadequate 

testing impacts undergrads too. It 
impacts the entire community far 
beyond this campus. So we really 
love to see undergrads come out in 
support of us.”

Some students who said they 

were initially unaware of the 
significance of crossing a picket 
line eventually decided to skip 
classes in solidarity.

Boudreau attended classes on 

the first day of the strike. It wasn’t 
until Tuesday evening that she 
decided to boycott her classes for 
the remainder of the week.

“I think it was questioning my 

privilege,” Boudreau said. “I kind 
of just had to consider that my 
performance in class is very, very 
much less important than other 
people’s safety in their lives as they 
interact with people on campus.”

With graduate students strikes, 
undergrads debate attending class

A virtual picket line, asynchronous classes, mixed support from faculty creates 
less clear cut options for students, forcing them to consider several factors

RYAN LITTLE/Daily

Members of the University of Michigan’s Graduate Employee Organization protest the re-opening of the University, among other causes, outside of Angell Hall Thursday morning.

Plume cleanup 
proposal release 
sparks criticism 
from residents

Dioxane contamination removal plan 
 

arrives 40 years after its discovery

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

IULIA DOBRIN & 

JOHN GRIEVE

Daily Staff ReporterS

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Health care professionals discuss struggles in seeing coronavirus patients, reflect on beginning of pandemic at Michigan Medicine

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

It has been six months since the first COVID-19 case was detected in Michigan.

KRISTINA ZHENG

Daily Staff Reporter