COVID testing at packing plants ups number of cases

On Sunday the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) has been notified of 389 additional positive cases for a total of 2,902 positive cases. There have been an additional 1,214 negative tests for a total of 21,648 negative tests to date, which includes testing reported by the State Hygienic Lab and other labs.

According to IDPH, an additional death was also reported, an adult age 61-80 of Muscatine County.  There are 198  currently hospitalized, and 1,171 Iowans have recovered.

The majority of the additional positive cases – 261 or 67 percent –   can be attributed to surveillance testing of meat processing facilities. That includes more than 500 completed surveillance tests of Tyson employees and more than 500 completed surveillance tests of National Beef employees, for a total of 84 positive and 177 positive respectively.

In Regional Medical Coordination Center 1, which includes Greene County, with Polk County as the hub of medical services, as of Saturday at 10 am there were 64 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, 21 of whom were in intensive care units with 15 of them on ventilators.

RMCC 1 jumped back up to a 9 rating; a rating of 10 would result in enhanced mitigation efforts.

The state of Iowa has released an updated dashboard on coronavirus.iowa.gov that will be updated daily to include comprehensive tracking of COVID-19 in Iowa. The new dashboard includes cases, deaths, and tests conducted in each county. The state is now providing demographic information that was not previously provided as well as Iowa’s epidemiological curve.

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