Health Care and Medicine

Due to an increase patient count, local hospitals are temporarily limiting elective surgeries and procedures in an effort to preserve hospital capacity for emergency cases and to continue serving the community, officials say.

Democratic legislative leaders endorsed Biden’s coronavirus vaccination mandates as a response to failed GOP leadership while the Republican Party of Iowa warned the president is “striking a dangerous authoritarian tone.”

Iowa Republican legislators and the governor prohibited mask mandates in schools for purely political reasons to appease complaining constituents, a lawyer representing a mother and her sons argued Thursday.

Children aged 17 and younger made up 29 percent of positive COVID-19 cases this past week, remaining as the top age group for positive cases

The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly

Late last month, federal public health officials announced Americans with a compromised immune system were eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose. Some of the first Iowans who qualify began recieving that booster dose this month, including Cedar Rapids resident Erica Earl.

A Gazette reader asked us about discarded COVID vaccines in Iowa. Here’s what we learned.

With little discussion and much praise for the project – which struggled to get the state go-ahead it needs – Iowa’s Board of Regents on Tuesday unanimously approved construction on a new $395 million University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics site in North Liberty to start as soon as later this month.

As the second summer of the pandemic wanes, state emergency orders that mandate coverage of telehealth visits and waive the requirement for out-of-state medical licenses are expiring.

Research has found masks are a highly effective tool in preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus, including in states that have implemented statewide mask mandates. One public health expert says bans on these universal requirements can be detrimental to overall mask use.

All Mercy employees and volunteers must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 15, officials announced Friday.

A group of parents of disabled students filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to strike down Iowa's law banning schools from requiring masks, arguing it endangers their health and denies equal access to education.