For the 12th day in a row, Iowa set a new record for the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, with the Iowa Department of Public Health reporting 912 patients on Friday morning, an increase of 73 from Thursday morning’s total of 839.
One hundred and sixty-four of the 912 patients are being treated in intensive care units, according to the department.
It took Iowa 13 days to go from surpassing 500 hospitalized COVID-19 patients to more than 600. It took four days to go from that total to more than 700. It took three days to exceed 800. And it took one day to surpass 900.
At 10 a.m. on Friday, IDPH reported that during the previous 24 hours, another 3,533 people had tested positive for COVID-19, including 116 residents of Johnson County and 311 residents of Linn County. The newly reported cases increased the total number of Iowans who have been confirmed as having the virus since it was first detected in the state to 144,142.
IDPH also reported another 14 deaths from COVID-19 during the same time period, which brought the state’s death toll from the virus to 1,815.
During her first news conference on COVID-19 since Oct. 7, Gov. Kim Reynolds said on Thursday that it was essential to dramatically decrease the uncontrollable spread of COVID-19 in Iowa over the next three weeks. The governor, however, has decided not to impose any new restrictions or take other steps, such as requiring face coverings in public. Instead, the Reynolds administration will place ads in newspapers around the state starting next week, to be followed by ads on radio and television. The ads will remind people of the importance of washing their hands, practicing social distancing and other basic virus mitigation steps.
From 10 a.m. on Sunday through 10 a.m. on Friday, IDPH reported 16,785 new cases of COVID-19 in the state. During that same time period, IDPH reported 100 deaths from the virus.
