Gazette Daily News Podcast, September 29

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This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Wednesday, September 29th.

Wednesday might be the last day in the week with no chance for rain. According to the National Weather Service it will be mostly sunny in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 86 degrees. On Wednesday night it will be mostly cloudy, with a low around 63 degrees. The forecast looks like it will get cooler, and potentially wetter, as the week continues on.

According to the Associated Press, a federal judge has extended a restraining order for 14 more days blocking an Iowa state law that prohibits mask mandates, allowing schools to mandate masks in the meantime as a result.

The order, issued late Monday by U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt, extends his initial order from Sept. 13 until Oct. 11, which means school districts may impose mask mandates and the state cannot stop them. Pratt concluded in his order that enforcement of the law continues to pose a threat to the health of children.

Documents filed in the case claim that nearly a quarter of Iowa public school students are in districts that have experienced significant COVID-19 outbreaks this year.

On the positive news front, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have proved “highly effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19” among health care workers in “real-world” settings, according to a new national study that involved over 300 University of Iowa Health Care workers.

The project, co-led by UI professors of emergency medicine Nick Mohr and David Talan, involved 4,931 health care workers from 33 medical centers — including UI Hospitals and Clinics — between December 2020 and May.

Findings, published Sept. 22 in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed a two-dose regimen of the Pfizer vaccine to be 89 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19 and the Moderna version to be 96 percent effective.

The Cedar Rapids City Council on Tuesday adopted a plan committing Iowa’s second-largest city to action to do its part in slowing global warming, with targets to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and to enhance community resiliency to the consequences of human-caused global warming.

The Community Climate Action Plan outlines steps that residents and neighborhood groups, industrial partners, businesses and city officials can take to engage in local climate action, with an eye toward equity to uplift those who will disproportionately bear the consequences of a warming planet. These goals include increased walkability and easy access to city amenities and green space.

City officials lauded the plan as a likely model for other communities to use.

The Iowa State Patrol is seeking additional information from the public after a pedestrian was killed in a hit-and-run incident on Interstate 80 in Iowa City on Monday afternoon.

According to the patrol, at 4:14 p.m., an “unknown vehicle” struck a pedestrian in a travel lane of eastbound Interstate 80 in Iowa City under the Dodge Street overpass at mile marker 246.

The report stated the incident remains under investigation. The Iowa State Patrol asks anyone who was a witness or has any related information to contact the agency.

The name of the person killed has not yet been released.