One affected county has only one confirmed case
Residents in 14 northeast Iowa counties are now prohibited from all gatherings of any size with anyone who doesn’t live in their same household.
Gov Kim Reynolds issued a new order Thursday, effective at 11:59 pm, enhancing efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
The order limits social, community, recreational, leisure and sporting gatherings to only immediate household members; continues to limit weddings, funerals, and other religious gatherings to no more than 10 people; requires people to remain 6 feet away from people outside their household whenever possible; and requires employers to take “reasonable” steps to increase telework and adopt “reasonable” precautions to protect the health of employees and the public at any in-person operations.
Reynolds made the announcement at her daily press briefing.
The new order comes after the 14-county Regional Medical Care Coordination Region 6 scored 10 on the scale the Iowa Department of Public Health uses to rank the incidence and severity of COVID-19. The ranking is primarily due to the number of long term care residents/staff (143 in three facilities in the region), the severity of cases, and an increased number of hospitalizations.
As of April 15 at 10 am Region 6 had 175 persons hospitalized with the virus, 84 of whom were in intensive care. Forty-eight of the ICU patients were on ventilators.
Counties in Region 6 are Allamakee, Benton, Black Hawk, Brewer, Buchanan, Clayton, Delaware, Dubuque, Fayetteville, Grundy, Howard, Jones, Linn and Winneshiek. The order is for the entire region, although Fayette and Winneshiek counties have only five cases each. Delaware and Howard counties have only two cases each, and Grundy County has only one case.
Reynolds said IDPH is sending 1,500 COVID tests a Tyson plant in Waterloo (Black Hawk County) where an outbreak is suspected.
Region 1, which includes Greene County, is at a 9, with 54 hospitalized patients, 20 of whom were in intensive care. Fifteen are on ventilators. Greene County still has only one identified case. That person was not hospitalized.
Region 5, which includes southwest counties, is also at 9. That region includes Iowa City and Columbus Junction, where another Tyson plant has been closed due to a COVID outbreak. Nine hundred COVID tests were sent to the Tyson plant yesterday, Reynolds reported.
Additional tests have also been sent to long term care facilities in Bremer, Muscatine, Johnson, Dubuque and Linn counties.
“Increased testing at this time is critical to not only target virus activity and identifying potential risk, but also in implementing specific measures to slow the spread within a facility, business, or community. It’s also going to be critical in making decisions to open up our state,” Reynolds said.
IDPH plans to launch Test Iowa next week. The initiative will enable the state to conduct large-scale testing and contact tracing across the state. Testing capacity will increase to more than 3,000 tests per day.
“Dedicated strike teams” of nurses be “deployed” to long term care facilities and businesses where outbreaks are occurring or anticipated. They’ll conduct surveillance testing among long term care residents and staff, or employees at large production facilities. Their purpose will be to identify, isolate, and slow the spread of the virus.
IDPH has also put together prevention teams that will conduct outreach to large businesses and law enforcement to review guidance for preventing and detecting outbreaks, and provide education about what to do if an outbreak occurs.
IPDH is also preparing to start serology testing. Two labs in the state will begin processing the tests as soon as reagents are delivered. The test will determine if a person has already had COVID-19. “That will be an important factor in making informed decisions about how we target our response and reopen the state,” Reynolds said.
IDPH reported 146 new positive cases for a total of 2,141. Seven Iowans died in the 24 hours prior to 10 am Wednesday, bringing the toll to 60. The deceased include an adult age 61-80 from Allamakee County; an adult age 61-80 from Linn County; adults age 18-40, age 41-60, and age 81 or older from Polk County; an adult age 41-60 from Louisa County (other media have reported him to be a Tyson employee); and an adult age 81 or older from Tama County.
More complete data is available at coronavirus.iowa.gov
