Iowa Department of Public Health shows another dozen Iowans have died from COVID-19. Five-hundred more have tested positive for the virus in a 24-hour period.
Facing the nation’s second-most coronavirus cases per capita over the last two weeks, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has defended her coronavirus strategy as a “balanced approach” that has kept the state’s economy humming.
The rolling average number of daily new cases reported by South Dakota health officials has increased by 84, an increase of about 56% during that time frame. That’s according researchers at Johns Hopkins.
A Test Iowa site is now located at Morningside College in Sioux City. Testing will be available for undergraduate students, faculty and staff only for a couple of hours in the afternoon Monday through Friday. There is no cost for the testing that will be done with or without symptoms or exposure to the disease.
All students in the Hinton Community School District will return to in-person learning Thursday morning according to a post on social media. Grades 4th through 12th moved to virtual learning at the end of last month after a high positivity rate of new cases for Plymouth County. The current rate is at 19%, at one time it reached almost 24%.
Cedar Falls has approved a mask mandate, joining with other Iowa cities that have taken similar moves as the state continues to see high numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases.
Enforcement of the rules vary but are primarily focused on education, with police in some communities instructed to hand out masks to those not wearing them.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has declined to approve a statewide mask order because she said it would be impossible to enforce. Reynolds has told local jurisdictions that because she hasn’t issued an order, they don’t have the authority to enforce their mask mandates.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has suspended six sorority and fraternity chapters after photos and videos showed students in those organizations violating local public health and university policies.
UNL administrators learned several Greek houses had hosted large gatherings on Monday. UNL officials say attendees were not wearing face coverings or observing social distancing guidelines.
Meanwhile, today, Dakota County reports five new confirmed cases for 2,053 in all and 43 deaths.
The sister of a Siouxland man who died of complications of COPD and COVID-19 says everything should be done to project fragile members of our community.
Chris Mennen, was born with Down Syndrome and died just over a month ago at a nursing home in Sanborn, Iowa. Mary Sue Moore who lives in Milford says the facility did all it could to keep the virus out of the facility, but her brother was vulnerable to the virus.
“He was born with an extremely fragile respiratory system. He was also obese and just didn’t have the immune system or strength to fight through it.”
Moore says until there is a vaccine or better treatment options for COVID-19 extra precautions need to be taken. However, for people living in nursing homes and other care centers
“But, this is a very highly, highly infectious disease it just reinforced what I feel about it already. The downside for all of this of course is the isolation.”
You can hear more about Chris Mennen’s inspiring life on our website kwit.org and during this week’s edition of The Exchange with host Mary Hartnett.
In spite of some locally heavy rain, Iowa farmers had nearly 6 and a half days suitable for fieldwork last week. The weekly report from the USDA, says although drought conditions continue to be a concern for most of the State, some areas of northeast and east central Iowa received more than an inch of rain.. There were reports of high moisture in corn and a few soybean fields have been harvested.
Iowa’s topsoil and subsoil moisture conditions continue to be more than three quarters short to very short. The condition of the corn crop is rated 43% good to excellent, a drop of 2 percentage points from the previous week.
Soybean condition fell again this week with the crop now rated 47% good to excellent, the lowest level so far this season.
