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One new COVID death recorded in Marshall County

Marshall County recorded another death related to COVID-19 this week, bringing its total during the pandemic to 37.

The county has 529 active cases, up from 290 last week, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 data. The positivity rate in Marshall County is 16.9 percent.

Hospitalizations continue to rise across the state with 839 patients as of Wednesday. There are 188 people in the intensive care unit, 60 on ventilators and 156 hospitalized in the last 24 hours. ICU bed availability is about 33 percent for the state.

Gov. Kim Reynolds held a press conference on Thursday to address Iowa’s increase in hospitalizations. She plans to take no action at this time aside from launching a media campaign next week to urge Iowans to wear masks, socially distance, wash their hands and stay home if they are sick.

According to the governor, Iowa reported more than 41,000 new cases in October. The statewide positivity rate averaged 14.3 percent. Hospitalizations increased from 393 on Oct. 1 to 676 on Oct. 31.

“We all know this trend cannot continue,” Reynolds said. “As the weather changes and more of our activities move indoors I’m asking you to take additional precautions and carefully consider whether certain events are worth the risk that they could present for you or someone you love.”

Reynolds cited “pandemic fatigue” from constant media coverage of the virus as a factor in Iowans not taking mitigation efforts seriously. She said while she knows many are tired of “living differently because of COVID-19” the next three weeks will be critical in the state’s attempt to control the virus.

“In the big picture these are really small sacrifices,” she said. “It’s critical right now that we work together to protect those that are most vulnerable to serious illnesses and continue to do everything we can to preserve our health care resources.”

There have been 1,801 deaths in Iowa. Of those, 65 percent had confirmed pre-existing conditions.

Reynold’s noted that while IDPH data shows 1,005,088 individuals tested, duplicate tests are not counted, meaning individuals tested more than once only count one time. Of the 140,609 people to test positive for the virus in Iowa, 97,944 have recovered.

There are 84 active outbreaks at long-term care facilities in the state, including one in Marshall County. Southridge Specialty care has 20 positive cases tied to the facility with two recovered. Long-term care facilities are connected to 870 COVID-19 related deaths.

USAfacts.org, a nonprofit organization which records and reports government data, reports 230,470 deaths related to the novel coronavirus in the United States which is an increase of 5,859 since last week and 1,280 reported on Nov. 3 alone.

USAfacts data on Iowa and Marshall County differs from IDPH’s data set. The site reports 133,229 known cases and 1,755 deaths in the state. Marshall County is listed with 2,299 known cases and a death rate of 5,839.6 per 100,000 population. The death rate last week was 5,146.2 per 100,000 population.

Marshall County has the 13th highest number of COVID-19 cases in Iowa

The counties with highest numbers include:

CASES ACTIVE

Polk — 21,761 4,843

Woodbury — 8,043. 1,727

Linn — 7,528 2,936

Black Hawk — 6,968 2,143

Johnson — 6,552 1,168

Dubuque — 6,242 2,179

Scott — 5,705 2,086

Story — 4,497 832

Dallas — 4,018 969

Pottawattamie–3,773. 1,020

Sioux — 2,795 757

Buena Vista– 2,426 307

Marshall — 2,390 529

ACCORDING TO IDPH DATA:

Race:

• Caucasian: 72 percent

• African American: 4 percent

• Hispanic or Latino: 10 percent

• Asian: 2 percent

Sex:

• Female: 51 percent

• Male: 47 percent

Age:

• 18-40: 44 percent

• 41-60: 28 percent

• 61-80: 15 percent

• 0-17: 9 percent

• 80 or older: 4 percent

——

Contact Joe Fisher at 641-753-6611 or jfisher@timesrepublican.com

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