Articles Tagged: COVID vaccine

Iowa Senate leader said his preference is to limit the discussion to just COVID-19 vaccine requirements, but acknowledged other lawmakers may want to broaden that discussion to other vaccines.

Effective Friday, the Linn County Public Health department will no longer conduct COVID-19 contact tracing efforts for county residents. The county agency is following its cue from the state, which ended statewide virus surveillance this past August.

Johnson and Linn counties are seeing their highest weekly totals for COVID-19 cases in 13 months as positivity rates continue to trend up, according to data released Wednesday by the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Experts say the pandemic will become endemic, meaning hospitals likely will face COVID-19 for the foreseeable future. As they prepare for long-term response, area hospital leaders say they face a number of challenges around recruiting and retaining an adequate health care workforce.

With the COVID-19 infection once again surging during the holiday season, we asked medical experts how Iowans can be safe in the coming weeks.

The number of patients hospitalized for the coronavirus in Iowa dropped this week, the first decline following six consecutive weeks of increases, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. Despite that, total available ICU beds dipped to another all-time low this past week, reaching just 130 available beds on Tuesday.

School mask and quarantine rules in some Eastern Iowa schools are changing with the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine for people 5 years and older.

O’Donnell confirmed Friday she has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms. She said she’s been vaccinated but had not yet received a booster.

Iowa reported 823 individuals have been hospitalized as a result of the coronavirus this past week, the highest total seen in 2021. The last time hospitalizations were at or above 800 was more than a year ago.

On Dec. 14, 2020, an emergency department nurse at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics became the first person in Iowa to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. One year later, nearly 2 million Iowans have been fully vaccinated, but UIHC say there’s still work to be done in order to control the pandemic.

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.

Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst voted Wednesday to pass a Senate resolution that would invalidate President Joe Biden’s vaccine or test mandates for private employers.

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.

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