Gazette Daily News Podcast, November 4

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This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Thursday, November 4.

Thursday will begin a warming trend that will lead to a pleasant weekend. According to the National Weather Service it will be partly sunny in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 53 degrees. Thursday night’s low will still be near freezing, settling in around 34 degrees.

The rate of new COVID-19 cases is increasing again in Iowa, at least for the moment, according to data released Wednesday by the Iowa Department of Public Health. After weeks of falling infection rates following a spike in infections that came with the beginning of the school year, the past week saw the cases jump from 6,983 new cases the previous week to 7,643 new cases this most recent week. It was the first jump in new cases after more than a month of declining numbers.

Iowa also saw another 104 deaths added to the state’s total death count from the disease. The statewide death toll is now at 7,069 people since the pandemic was first reported in Iowa in March of 2020.

The under 17 age group continues to have the most cases, with 20 percent of the new cases reported in the past week. Although this could change with the approval of a vaccine regimen for 5- to 11-year-olds.

Young Iowans began receiving COVID-19 vaccinations Wednesday after federal officials approved shots for children ages 5 to 11 the night before, clearing the way for a new phase of vaccine distribution in Iowa.

Pediatricians, pharmacies and other vaccine providers across the state have begun administering the Pfizer vaccine shots to this age group with doses from advanced allocations that arrived, in some cases, just hours before the vaccine received emergency use authorization.

That included a handful of providers in the Corridor, who were distributing pediatric doses during vaccine clinics Wednesday evening.

From one ongoing battle to another: Deere & Co. said Wednesday that the proposed contract offered striking workers — which union members rejected Tuesday — is the company's "last, best, and final offer."

UAW members, on strike since Oct. 14, rejected the deal, 55 percent to 45 percent, despite gaining majority support from Quad-City union members. Union members at manufacturing plants Waterloo and Dubuque, however, rejected the contract.

That means the strike will continue by 10,100 production and maintenance employees at 12 Deere facilities in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas. It is the first major walkout at the agricultural machinery giant in more than three decades.

Union members said that the contract was rejected despite an increased wage offer over the original agreement because lingering demands still have not been addressed by the company. The union is now discussing next steps.

New state and federal pandemic relief funding will be used to make child care in Iowa more accessible, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Wednesday as the recommendations on her child care task force were compiled in a new state report.

According to the group’s report, Iowa has the nation’s highest share of households in which all parents work, yet many families especially in rural areas do not have access to child care. Roughly 23 percent of Iowans overall — and 35 percent of rural Iowans — live in a “child care desert,” an area with a significant shortage of child care providers, according to the report.

Reynolds said the state will make available $10 million in grants for expanding current child care facilities or building new ones, and distribute $200 million in federal grants to child care facilities that suffered economically during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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