Gov. Kim Reynolds’ administration has decided Iowa no longer needs the weekly report on the state from the White House Coronavirus Task Force. “We are not requesting the report at this time,” Iowa Department of Public Health spokesperson Sarah Ekstrand told the Des Moines Register in an email on Monday afternoon. Ekstrand did not respond […]
Iowa Department of Public Health
Posted inCommunity/News
Kirk Ferentz tests positive for COVID-19
Hawkeye football Head Coach Kirk Ferentz has tested positive for COVID-19 and “will remain home until Dec. 27,” the University of Iowa Athletics Department announced in a statement on Friday morning. According to UI Athletics, Ferentz tested positive using a rapid antigen test on Thursday morning, and the results were confirmed by a PCR test. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Uncertainty remains about how many doses of COVID vaccine Iowa will receive this month
There was confusion on Thursday over how much COVID-19 vaccine Iowa will receive in its initial shipments from the federal government. During her Dec. 3 news conference, Gov. Kim Reynolds said the state had been told it would receive 172,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines by the end of December. But on Wednesday […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Gov. Reynolds relaxes COVID-19 restrictions while Trump administration cuts Iowa’s allotment of vaccine by 30 percent
At her news conference on Wednesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds highlighted how much virus activity in Iowa has declined since she imposed some new COVID-19 restrictions on Nov. 16, before announcing she was relaxing some of those restrictions. “Bars and restaurants can resume their normal hours of operation,” the governor said. In her Nov. 16 emergency […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa is spending $10m in federal pandemic aid on state police salaries
After insisting for two months that spending $21 million in federal pandemic aid on a new computer system unrelated to COVID-19 was a legitimate use of that money, Gov. Kim Reynolds reversed her position on Monday and ordered those funds returned to the state’s Coronavirus Relief Fund. Iowa Auditor Rob Sand first informed the Reynolds […]
Posted inCommunity/News
COVID-19 vaccinations begin at UIHC as 60 new deaths are reported in Iowa
Frontline healthcare workers at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics started receiving COVID-19 vaccinations on Monday morning. Vaccination programs around the country have begun following the FDA’s emergency use authorization of Pfizer’s vaccine Friday night. Emergency room RN David Conway was the first person at UIHC to receive the vaccine. “How’d it feel?” one […]
Posted inCommunity/News
COVID-19: State finally grants Iowa City schools another waiver, but ICCSD might not use it; another 2,057 Iowans test positive
On Friday afternoon, the Iowa Department of Education (DOE) granted the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) a waiver to continue with all-online classes next week as the number of new COVID-19 cases in Johnson County remains high. The district, however, said it will stick with its previously announced plan to resume its hybrid model […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa surpasses 250,000 COVID-19 cases as the Pfizer vaccine takes another step towards FDA approval
Late Thursday afternoon, the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel voted 17 to 4, with one abstention, to recommend the agency grant emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to people 16 and older. The FDA almost always follows the panel’s recommendations, and the emergency use authorization is expected to happen quickly. The four […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Gov. Reynolds relaxes some COVID-19 restrictions as deaths from the virus surpass 3,000
Iowa surpassed 3,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Wednesday, but Gov. Kim Reynolds started her news conference late Wednesday morning by focusing on positive trends. “We are now nearly two weeks out from the Thanksgiving holiday, and we continue to see the same slow, steady in new cases, positivity rates and hospitalizations that we have since […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa will now follow CDC standards for reporting COVID-19 deaths
Last week, the Iowa Department of Public Health set a record by reporting 70 deaths from COVID-19 in a 24-hour period. On Tuesday at 10 a.m., IDPH reported 202 more deaths from the virus. But as Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) Director Kelly Garcia explained to reporters on Monday night, 175 of those cases […]
Posted inCommunity/News
All 99 counties in Iowa have now reported deaths from COVID-19
The Iowa Department of Public Health reported another 35 deaths from COVID-19 during the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Among the deceased was the first COVID-19 fatality from Decatur County, which had been the sole remaining county with no COVID-19 deaths. Now, all 99 counties in Iowa have reported at least one death […]
Posted inCommunity/News
COVID-19: Iowa sets another record for deaths, has a third straight day of almost 3,000 new cases
One day after the previous record for deaths reported in a 24-hour period was shattered by the Iowa Department of Public Health disclosing 70 deaths from COVID-19, Iowa surpassed that total. At 10 a.m. on Friday, IDPH reported another 84 Iowans had died from the virus. The newly reported deaths included two residents of Johnson […]
