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Marshall County reached 50 deaths related to COVID-19 infection this week.
The Iowa Department of Public Health added three deaths in the county since last week, but USAfacts.org, which is a bipartisan data tool, has the total at 51.
Throughout Iowa 3,120 people have died, including 99 reported since Wednesday. There have been 251,028 cases; 3,701 of them in Marshall County.
There is an apparent lag in reporting of cases and deaths evident on IDPH's COVID dashboard. One instance of this discrepancy is in its reporting of cases at Iowa Veterans Home. According to the IDPH site, IVH has 136 positive cases and 104 recoveries. Last week the site showed 10 positive cases and four recoveries.
"That number -- it did just explode on there," said Rob Moore, IVH compliance officer and COVID section control nurse. "That hasn't been from very recent. It's got to be from clear at the beginning. We haven't had that many very recently. I can't answer where they're getting their numbers."
Moore notes IVH only has 135 staff members. He said there are seven staff members and four residents considered active cases right now.
A long-term care facility is considered in outbreak status if it has three positive cases among residents and staff regardless of the size of the facility. It must go 28 days without a new positive case to be taken off outbreak status. The IDPH dashboard does not distinguish between infections in residents and staff, which can make the data alarming when taken out of context.
"When we have it widespread in the community I'm expecting staff to be positive. I can't control what they're doing outside of here," Moore said. "We're doing the best we can for the residents. I'm pretty proud even for the city itself."
Marshall County's 14-day positivity rate is 11.8 percent. There are 142 active long-term care outbreaks. IVH is the only one in Marshall County. Southridge Specialty Care was removed this week.
The rate of hospitalizations declined for the second consecutive week with 863 people hospitalized, though 124 were admitted in the last 24 hours. Of those 863 patients, COVID-19 infection was the primary diagnosis for 615 – 71 percent. There are 189 patients in intensive care and 114 on ventilators. Twelve percent of the positive cases in the last 14 days occurred in children 17 years old or younger. Nineteen percent were between 18-29 years old. Only 13 percent of the cases were 70 or older.
USAfacts reports 14.9 million known cases of COVID-19 and 281,861 deaths in the United States. There have been 246,237 cases and 2,724 deaths in Iowa.
Contact Joe Fisher at jfisher@timesrepublican.com