Marshall County had two additional COVID-19 related deaths reported by the Iowa Department of Public Health this week.

It is the third consecutive week a death has been recorded in the county.

In total, there have been 40 COVID-19 related deaths in Marshall County.

In Iowa the total count of deaths is 2,102 including 38 new deaths on Thursday.

IDPH shows 3,154 new positive cases Thursday, bringing the state’s tally to 198,674 since the start of the pandemic. There have been 112,778 recoveries.

Marshall County fell back to 13th in the state for most cases with a total of 3,119. There are 1,140 active cases in the county.

IDPH unveiled new datasets this week which were announced by Gov. Kim Reynolds during a press conference last week. Cases by age are now grouped by decade for adults (i.e. 30-39 years old etc.). Children are still listed age 0-17.

A new section named “Hospitalization Analysis” breaks down the age groups of new hospitalizations. It shows 25 percent of hospitalized patients are 80 years old or older, 31 percent are 70-79 years old, 18 percent are 60-69 years old. There is a significant representation of younger patients as well, including 5 percent 18-29 year olds and 4 percent 30-39 year olds. About 1 percent of patients are 17 years old or younger.

A total of 1,516 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 infection. Of those hospitalized, 1,128 list COVID-19 as the primary diagnosis which is 74 percent of these hospitalizations. There are 283 patients in intensive care units and 135 on ventilators. There have been 233 new COVID-related hospitalizations since Thursday.

Reynolds announced an additional 20 new long-term care facility outbreaks were reported Thursday, bringing the total number of active outbreaks to 114. The new outbreaks did not appear on the IDPH website early Thursday afternoon. There have been 972 deaths attributed to COVID outbreaks in long-term care facilities. Seventy-three percent of cases in these facilities have been found in females.

Southridge Specialty Care in Marshalltown is still listed as an active outbreak with 26 positive cases and seven recovered.

Marshall County’s percentage of positive cases has dropped some in the last week. It had a 21.4 percent 14-day average last week. This week it is 19.5 percent. Iowa’s average is 22.1 percent.

About 52 percent of people who have died from COVID-19 in Iowa were 80 years old or older. Fifty-three percent were male.

According to USAfacts.org, there have been more than 11.2 million known cases and 245,149 deaths in the United States. The site regularly differs from what is reported by the IDPH. It lists Iowa with 190,583 cases and 2,024 deaths. Iowa is on the high end of the spectrum for cases per 100,000 population which is an indicator of the severity of community spread. Marshall County, which USAfacts reports 3,037 cases for, has 7,714.2 cases per 100,000 population. For context, Polk County, which has the highest number of total cases in the state with 28,368 according to USAfacts, has 5,787.5 cases per 100,000 population.

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

The counties with highest numbers include:

CUMULATIVE CASES ACTIVE CASES

Polk — 29,287 10,656

Linn — 12,475 7,154

Black Hawk –9,624 4,156

Woodbury — 9,509 2,404

Scott — 9,326 2,881

Johnson — 8,621 2,209

Dubuque — 8,268 3,244

Story — 5,928 1,990

Dallas — 5,593 2,203

Pottawattamie –5,264 1,979

Sioux — 3,357 996

Webster — 3,122 1,320

Marshall –3,087 1,199

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