Fewer Iowans are getting tested for COVID-19, and that’s making public health officials nervous.
“Anytime you don’t know your status, you could certainly be spreading the virus unknowingly,” said Liz Highland, an advanced registered nurse practitioner at the clinic that manages the bulk of the University of Iowa’s COVID-19 testing. “That’s the biggest risk that people who have COVID are still out in the public and spreading it.”
Over the last month, Dec. 21 through Wednesday, the median number of people tested each day in Iowa was 4,148, down 26 percent from the previous month’s daily median of 5,638 people tested, according to Gazette calculations based on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.
As opening days go, it could have been better. Or safer, at the least.
The first day of the Iowa Legislatureâs 2021 session featured the normal opening-day remarks from both Republican and Democratic leaders. But most noteworthy about Day 1 was the public rally with hundreds of people packed into the Iowa State Capitol rotunda to protest mask-wearing and other public health orders.
There was nothing illegal about the rally, and it was conducted peacefully.
Erin Murphy
But that made it no less irresponsible and dangerous. And itâs no stretch to imagine it could, ultimately, turn deadly.
COVID-19 is still sweeping through Iowa. The disease is not running as rampant as it was during the peak surge in November and December, but the two-week averages for cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain higher than they were at any point of the pandemic before that surge.
Image zoom | Credit: Courtesy of 21c
In the early 19th century, a small settlement called Cincinnati suddenly became a boomtown. It was the heyday of the steamboat, and this city on the northern shore of the Ohio River welcomed wave upon wave of immigrants, growing so fast that it soon earned the moniker Queen of the West. But in the mid 20th century, as manufacturing and river trade fell into decline, the population, as in so many other Rust Belt hubs, dwindled.
Now that s beginning to turn around, even amid a pandemic. The Queen City is growing and getting younger. New businesses are reinvigorating historic neighborhoods. Cincy is poised to have a major moment, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Over-the-Rhine, a vibrant, culturally rich district that s home to Findlay Market: the 165-year-old focal point of the city s growing food scene.
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Counting down this year s good news
Staff nurse Rachel Lewis administers the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to emergency room nurse David Conway at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City on Monday, Dec. 14, 2020. Conway, who works with COVID-19 patients on a daily basis, was the first individual in Iowa to receive the vaccine. (Andy Abeyta/The Gazette)
Washington senior Deon Harrison applauds as he listens to a speaker at the Cedar Rapids Community School District’s Black Student Unions Cookout at the African American Museum of Iowa in southeast Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. The event, sponsored by the district and Advocates for Social Justice, brought together black student organizations from the city’s schools. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)