Breaking News

COVID-19

Marshall County sees uptick in COVID cases

Marshall County Public Health Director Pat Thompson is urging all adults who have contact with children to get vaccinated. “Our little kids can’t get vaccinated until they’re 12 years old,” she said. “One thing that would help would be if all adults that are around children would get vaccinated so our kids don’t get exposed to COVID.” The start of school brings about another risk of virus spread as more people will be brought together in large groups indoors, Thompson said. The Iowa Department of Public Health reports about 51-percent of the county has been fully ...

Gov. Reynolds lashes back at Biden threat of action on masks

DES MOINES — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds lashed out at President Joe Biden Thursday after he ordered his education secretary to explore possible legal action against states including Iowa that have blocked school mask mandates and other public health measures meant to protect students against COVID-19. Reynolds in May signed a law that Republican legislators sent her that bans local school boards from implementing mask mandates. Several other Republican governors, including those in Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah, have similar policies that Education ...

At Midwest state fairs no masks required, vaccines are free

DES MOINES — Nestled between corn dog stands, animal barns and booths touting hot tubs and John Deere tractors, a Hy-Vee pharmacist and several nurses have been administering COVID-19 vaccines at the Iowa State Fair to anyone eligible that wants one. Their booth didn’t have the long lines ...

Mayor, IVCCD recommend vaccines, masks

With COVID-19 cases rising in the United States, communities are making recommendations to keep numbers low. At the forefront of these recommendations by some community members, is getting vaccinated. “The best advice I should have started with is if you have not been vaccinated, by God ...

New COVID-19 cases are up sharply in Iowa

Iowa’s seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases is 16 times higher than it was four weeks ago, showing the largest rate of increase since the peak of the pandemic last November. Although the actual number of new infections reported on Aug. 10 is, at 1,559, relatively small compared to the 5,489 new infections reported in Iowa on Nov. 13, 2020, the current rate of increase is the most significant of the past nine months, according to the New York Times’ COVID-19 tracker. As of Monday, there were 371 Iowans hospitalized with COVID-19, the highest number since Feb. 3. The number of ...

Iowa tossing out thousands of expired COVID-19 vaccine doses

DES MOINES — Iowa has tossed out tens of thousands of expired COVID-19 vaccine doses and could toss out hundreds of thousands more if demand for the vaccine continues to lag in the state, health officials there said. Iowa Department of Public Health spokeswoman Sarah Ekstrand said Monday that the state has tossed more than 81,000 doses of the vaccine, the Des Moines Register reported. “It’s so sad that we’re throwing away so many doses when we know the vaccine works,” said Rachel Reimer, chair of the Department of Public Health at Des Moines University, adding that millions ...