Gazette Daily News Podcast, Feb. 15

On today’s episode: Iowa’s COVID-19 disaster proclamation will expire Tuesday at 11:59 p.m., also marking the end of data reporting on coronavirus.iowa.gov; a 2.5 percent increase in state funding for Iowa’s public K-12 schools is heading to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk; and sports betting hit another record with $300 million wagered in January.

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The state’s coronavirus disaster proclamation will expire Tuesday at 11:59 p.m., ending the public health emergency response that has been in place since COVID-19 arrived in Iowa two years ago.

The proclamation, which was signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds on March 17, 2020, reallocated state resources to focus on pandemic response and suspended certain state laws to support public health.

Starting Wednesday, managing the coronavirus will be “part of normal daily business,” similar to how the state public health department responds to flu, Reynolds has said.

Linn County Public Health Director Pramod Dwivedi said the end of the proclamation should not be equated with the end of COVID-19, noting that there is still a high transmission rate of the virus in the community.

With the end of the proclamation, the state will shut down its COVID-19 tracking site — coronavirus.iowa.gov — and instead provide some of those statistics on the Iowa public health department’s website. Some statistics will no longer be collected or reported.

The state will no longer require reporting on negative test results — which means local public health agencies no longer will be able to report seven-day positivity rates for their counties.

In addition, Iowa no longer will require hospitals and nursing homes to report its case counts to the state. Instead, those metrics will be available on federal websites, because those facilities are still required to report those numbers federally.

Some Eastern Iowa public health agencies have said they will continue to track these metrics without the state’s assistance. Linn County Public Health officials said they will continue to publicly share county hospitalization data available from local hospitals and from federal officials.

Johnson County Public Health will continue to ask long-term care facilities to report and coordinate outbreaks with the department, Jarvis said.

Linn County, however, will not be monitoring those outbreaks, as those health events now fall under the authority of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, county officials said.

Public K-12 schools in Iowa are in line for a 2.5 percent increase in state funding under a proposal that cleared the Iowa Legislature on Monday and is on its way to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk.

The proposal means roughly $172 million in new general state funding for the next school year, on top of the roughly $3.4 billion allocated for the current school year.

The funding proposal was proposed and passed by statehouse Republicans, who have majorities in both chambers.

Senate Republicans had pitched a 2.25 percent increase, but they adjusted their proposal to match the 2.5 percent increase proposed by House Republicans and Reynolds.

Democrats proposed a 5 percent increase, which would have equated to almost $300 million in new funding, according to their staff analysis.

Democrats also proposed myriad additions to the K-12 public education funding proposal, including extra money for mental health care services and staff in schools, funding to reduce class sizes and retain and attract teachers, funding for expanding four- and five-year-old preschool, and allowing schools to use general funds to expand preschool.

Each proposal was rejected by majority Republicans.

Sports betting in Iowa hit another peak in January and is likely to continue climbing with big-ticket sporting events in February and March.

Last month, for the first time, more than $300 million was wagered on sporting events in Iowa in a single month, state figures show.

Those betting numbers were boosted by an extra week of professional football games under the league’s new 17-game regular season schedule, and strong interest in the Iowa and Iowa State men’s basketball teams and professional basketball’s Chicago Bulls, said Russ Mitchell, the lead analyst for the gaming news site playia.com.

More than $303 million was bet on sports in January in Iowa, $276 million of which was wagered online, according to data from the state agency that regulates gaming. That number is expected to remain strong in the coming months, as Super Bowl betting numbers will be reported in February’s numbers, and March will contain wagering on the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

According to the National Weather Service’s Quad Cities’ bureau:

Today will be partly sunny, with a high near 43. Southeast wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Tuesday Night will be mostly cloudy, with a temperature rising to around 43 by 5 a.m. South wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.

On Wednesday, a mix of rain and snow is expected to move into the area in the late afternoon.