For the 10th day in row, Iowa has set a new record for the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. On Wednesday morning, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported 777 confirmed cases of the virus among Iowa hospital patients, a substantial jump from the 730 patients IDPH reported the previous day.
The number of those patients being treated in intensive care units also hit a new high, with the department reporting 182 COVID-19 patients in ICUs, an increase of 16 patients from Tuesday.
A total of 164 of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients had been admitted during the previous 24 hours, according to IDPH. That is also a record-setting number, and a jump of 78 percent over the previous day’s total.
According to the most recent report from the White House Coronavirus Virus Task Force, Iowa hospitals admitted an average of 94 COVID-19 patients a day last week. The report, which is dated Nov. 1 and sent to the state on Sunday, was obtained and published by ABC News.
The new report documents the uncontrolled spread of the virus in the state growing worse. The previous report, dated Oct. 27, found that Iowa had a rate of 254 new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents. That rate spiked to 380 new cases per 100,000 residents last week, more than double the national average of 165 new cases per 100,000.
In the Oct. 27 report, Iowa ranked 10th among states in the rate of new cases. In the new report, it ranks sixth.
The new report says 99 percent of Iowa counties have moderate or high levels of community spread, up from 97 percent in the previous report. The vast majority of those counties — 83 percent — are experiencing a high level of community spread. That is an increase of 26 percentage points from the previous report.
The task force recommended implementing the same mitigation effort it has proposed in previous report. Gov. Kim Reynolds has refused to act on those recommendation, saying that new actions by the state government to control the spread of COVID-19 are unnecessary.
On Wednesday, IDPH reported another 2,818 Iowans had tested positive for the virus during the 24-hour period ending at 10 a.m., including 96 residents of Johnson County and 120 residents of Linn County. Since March 8, 136,047 people have tested positive for the virus in Iowa.
During the same period, IDPH reported another 26 deathes from COVID-19. Among the deceased were one resident of Johnson County and one resident of Linn County. The newly reported deaths increased Iowa’s COVID-19 death toll to 1,781.
According to the White House Coronavirus Task Force report, Iowa ranks 13th among states for COVID-19 deaths per capita.
