The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom based in Washington, D.C., released a report about a July 14 document prepared for White House Coronavirus Task Force. According to the document, 18 states — including Iowa — are considered red zone states. That means those states have had more than 100 new cases per 100,000 population from July 5-11.

Iowa had 116 cases per 100,000 population, compared to the national average of 119 per 100,000.

The report supplied areas of Iowa which are in red or yellow zones. Yellow zones had between 10 to 100 new cases of COVID-19 during that time and a test positivity rate of between 5 to 10 percent. Marshalltown is listed as a yellow zone area, along with Des Moines, Ames, Iowa City and more.

To preempt exponential community spread in yellow zones, the document recommends the public:

• Wear a mask at all times outside the home and maintain physical distance

• Social gatherings should be limited to 25 people or fewer

• Do not go to bars or nightclubs

• Use take out, outdoor dining or indoor dining when strict social distancing can be maintained

• Protect anyone with serious medical conditions at home by social distancing at home and using high levels of personal hygiene

• Reduce public interactions and activities to 50 percent.

For public officials, the document recommends:

• Limit gyms to 25 percent occupancy and close bars until percent positive rates are less than 3 percent; create outdoor dining opportunities with pedestrian areas

• Limit social gatherings to 25 people or fewer

• Institute routine weekly testing of all workers in assisted living and long-term care facilities. Require masks for all staff and prohibit visitors

• Ensure all business retailers and personal services require masks and can safely social distance

• Increase messaging on the risk of serious disease for individuals in all age groups with preexisting obesity, hypertension and Type 1 diabetes, and recommend to shelter in place

• Work with local community groups to provide targeted, tailored messaging to communities with high case rates, and increase community level testing

• Recruit more contact tracers as community outreach workers to ensure all cases are contacted and all positive households are individually tested within 24 hours

• Provide isolation facilities outside of households if COVID-positive individuals cannot quarantine successfully.

For testing, the following is recommended:

• Move to community-led neighborhood testing and work with community groups to increase access to testing

• Surge testing and contact tracing resources to neighborhoods and zip codes with highest case rates

• For diagnostic pooling, laboratories should use pooling of samples to increase testing access and reduce turnaround times to less than 12 hours. Consider pools of 3-5 individuals

• For surveillance pooling involving family and cohabitating households, screen entire households in a single test by pooling specimens of all members into single collection device.