Coronavirus

With the 2020-21 flu vaccination rate among children 6 months to 17 years at 59 percent – a 5 percentage point drop from the year prior – Neiman said more can be done for many kids.

Using federal dollars, the state has contracted 100 traveling nurses and respiratory therapists to assist 17 hospitals across Iowa as health care providers grapple with the highest number of COVID-19 patient admissions seen in a year.

The latest variant of COVID-19, omicron, has been detected in an Iowa resident for the first time, state public health officials confirmed Thursday. The Black Hawk County resident is under 18 and is asymptomatic.

As their hospitals experience a concerning increase in COVID-19 admissions, the top medical officers at Mercy Medical Center and UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital say more people with boosted immunity could help slow the surge.

The Dubuque center has required it employees to wear personal protective equipment at work since March 2020.

In the past 24 hours alone, 133 COVID-19 patients were admitted to Iowa hospitals, the highest since Dec. 8, 2020. Seven-day COVID-19 admissions, as well as the number of patients in the ICU and on ventilators, have also reached numbers not seen since last year.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said that while two doses may not be protective enough to prevent infection, lab tests showed a booster increased by 25-fold people's levels of virus-fighting antibodies.

New York announced three more cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus Saturday, bringing the number of state cases linked to the new variant to eight.

A look back at what’s been in the news in Iowa in the past week

Patients with Alzheimer ’s disease appear to be more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who don’t have the neurodegenerative disease, according to new University of Iowa research that could hold implications for ethical vaccine distribution and global policy decisions.

Since the Board of Regents three weeks ago directed its public universities to make COVID “vaccination verification and accommodation systems available to all campus employees on a voluntary basis,” 3,426 workers have confirmed they’re vaccinated.

The number of individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 this week are at the highest level seen in nearly a year. leaping to 721 from 623 last week. Patient counts statewide leaped for the fourth week in a row, according to the state public health department.

Army Guard members have until June 30 to comply

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa public health officials have stopped requiring hospitals to report the home county of patients being treated for COVID-19, even as all 99 counties have a high rate of spread and hospitalizations are at their highest level since early October.

Public health officials have shown little desire to once again take disruptive measures, instead pushing Americans to voluntarily change their behavior without punitive threats.