Iowa state health officials have confirmed more than 13 thousand new COVID-19 infections in the past week.
The state continues to set new record highs for hospitalizations this year.
State officials reported today 777 Iowans are hospitalized with COVID-19.
Theresa Brennan is the chief medical officer for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. She says health care workers are exhausted from the pandemic.
We, you know, continue to struggle, as many hospitals in Iowa have continued to struggle with making sure that we have beds for the patients that need them.
The state reported its 14-day test positivity rate at 12 percent. This marks an increase for the sixth week straight.
In the past week, an additional 105 Iowans were confirmed to have died from COVID-19. This brings the state’s total death count to 7,550.
Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand announced yesterday he would run for re-election in 2022 and not for governor as some supporters had been urging.
Sand said yesterday on Twitter he would not challenge Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who is expected to run for re-election.
State Rep. Ras Smith of Waterloo and Des Moines businesswoman and political organizer Deidre DeJear are among those running for the party’s nomination in the June primary.
In a move critics call unprecedented, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to retroactively throttle back the amount of ethanol and biodiesel that was required to be blended into the nation's fuel supply in 2020.
The announcement Tuesday immediately drew the ire of Iowa Republicans and farm and renewable fuel groups.
The agency cited the national shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic that drastically reduced fuel demand. The federal agency also wants to slim down the blending requirements for 2021 as the year nears an end.
However, it calls for aggressive blending requirements in 2022.
