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IDPH: 2 deaths, 123 new COVID-19 cases in Iowa Share Shares Copy Link Copy

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Governor Reynolds is holding a news conference right now to update us on the cove in 19 situation in Iowa. Let's listen in. Well, good morning. We'll go ahead and get started this morning with an update on the numbers. We had 100 and 13 new positive cases for a total of 1710 positive cases. We had one new county, CASS County. For a total of 82 counties. We had 981 negative cases today, for a total of 16,986 negative test Anil total of 18,696 tested. The state hygienic lab has 3565 test available. As of last evening, we have 100 and 42 hospitalized, 741 have recovered for recovery rate of 43%. And I'm very sad to report that we have had two additional deaths one elderly adults in Linn County and one older adult in Muscatine for a total of 43 deaths. And our sincere condolences go out to the families of those who have passed the number of Iowans who have successfully recovered from Kobe at 19 continues to increase Daly and later this week will share information about what I was. Epi Curve is telling us about our onset of illness. These signs are encouraging, but they certainly do. They are not a reason enough for us to let up on her mitigation efforts at this time. As we've been saying, we project that I was peak will occur later this month and until then we anticipate our positive our number of positive cases and unfortunately our deaths will continue to rise as well. Long term care facilities also continued to be a big concern despite significant mitigation measures taken early on, including restricting visitors and screening staff at all shifts. That virus has still been introduced into some facilities, resulting in devastating consequences. Staff and residents of long term care facilities account for more than 10% of all of our positive covet cases in Iowa and 53% off all deaths are residents of long term care facilities. This is why it has been so important that we prioritize testing for essential workers and vulnerable Iowans. The Department of Public Health is working now to deploy the APP in the Abbott Rabbit testing machines to conduct surveillance testing among long term care facility staff and residents when an essential worker test positive recovered, 19 local public health officials are able to conduct contact tracing to determine any potential exposures that may have occurred and isolate those individuals as soon as possible to prevent further spread of the virus. And this is also why we continue to urge all Iowans to stay as a stay at home as much as possible. Rook from Home If you can practice social distancing at any time you're in public, don't gather in groups of more than 10 people and isolated home. If you or any member of your household is sick, these important steps will significantly reduce the risk of further explosions, exposing our essential workers and vulnerable Iowans to the virus. All Iowans must continue to do our part to protect our health and the health of others during this critical time. I also want to provide a brief update on the regional medical coordination centers or the R M. C. C's after the weekend. So let's start with regions one into in central Iowa yesterday in Region one which includes Polk County in the Des Moines metro area. There were 38 cove, it 19 patients hospitalized. Five new patients were was admitted in the last 24 hours, 14 were in icy use and 11 were on ventilators. There were 1365 inpatient beds available, 139 I C U beds and 224 ventilators available for patient care in region to the north central area of the state. There were there was one cove, it 19 patient hospitalized. No new patients were admitted in the last 24 hours. One is in an I C. U, and one was on a ventilator. There were 235 inpatient beds, six I seeyou beds and 25 ventilators available for patient care. On the western side of the state yesterday, Region three reported to cove it 19 patients hospitalized. One new patient was admitted in the last 24 hours. One is in an I C. U, and none were on ventilators. They're 540 inpatient beds, 44 I seeyou beds and 59 ventilators available for patient care in region for there were two covert, 19 patients hospitalized. One new patient was admitted in the last 24 hours. One was in an I C U and none run ventilators. There were 254 inpatient beds, 37 I seeyou beds and 68 ventilators available for patient care and finally in eastern Iowa. As of yesterday, Region five were Johnson County and Scott County is located. We had 55 cove it 19 patients hospitalized. 12 new patients were admitted in the last 24 hours, 24 were in I C. U and 15 were on ventilators. And there were 727 inpatient beds. 85 I see you beds and 100 and 66 ventilators available for patient care. And in Region six, where Linn County is located, there were 44 Cove in 19 patients hospitalized. Five new patients were admitted in the last 24 hours. 29. When I see youse, 14 were on ventilators and there were 1225 inpatient beds, 69 I C U beds and 100 and 33 ventilators available for patient care over the course of the last week, we spent quite a bit of time talking about the challenges of covert 19 and what how that presents challenges for the long term care facilities. So in closing today, I want to take a moment to recognize this staff who work in the over 444 long term care facilities across Iowa, especially those who who are working and facilities that have been impacted by an outbreak. You're more than caregivers, your heroes on the front line of this of this crisis. And I know this situation is especially difficult for you. So thank you for showing up every day with compassion and integrity and for caring for your residence as you would your own family. Pete, please be safe and stay well and know that we will continue to do our part to protect you and to work with you. And with that we will open it up for questions. Are there any updates on the 1 to 10 scale for the various regions? Yep, there is So um in. We'll start with region six. It is an eight RMC Sea region five is an eight RMC sea region to is a seven RMC Sea region one is an eight RMC Sea region three is a five and our MCC region four is a six with some of those numbers declining. Could you explain? Like Thanks for the question. I think you're specifically asking about Region five and so what's happened in the region? Five. As we have, we've continued to see case counts increase the severity of the illness. I'm his also decreased. So the rate of hospitalization has gone down, which so for that particular metric that has gone from a three to a two related to the hospitalization rate. So that's why you saw the decrease from a nine to an A in that particular region today. Governor, can you talk about pee pees a little bit? Friday there seemed to be a little difference in your tone, stressing the severity of PPS as they stand now versus where we could go several hours after you talk. We heard from the president say that pee pees air not a concern or people who are glued to their TVs right now following both of you. What is your advice on which person they're supposed to believe? And can you specifically talk about what you all are doing to get more of these peopIe ease. Is it through the feds? Are you doing them through private vendors? What's the process? Yeah, well, if I said over and over and over, it is in all of the above. So we continue to order through the national lab. We continue to order through Dass. We continue to encourage our hospitals and clinicians toe order through their private vendors. We have also spent a great deal of time working out, reaching out to incredible businesses and individuals across the state that have really stepped up. The Department of Corrections is just the number of gowns that they've been able to make and to get to our long term care facilities, especially, they're washable gowns, which is so important because the burn rate on the disposable gowns is so high in these long term care facilities. And so to be able, thio provide them with surgical. I mean, they're good gowns, but they're washable, so we can reuse them is really important. And so, you know, from the very beginning, we have all said that the P P has been one of the biggest concerns and as we have our heroes on the front line, that air working day in and day out to protect Iowans and especially our most vulnerable, we have an obligation to make sure that we're providing them sufficient PP. And so the stockpiles just weren't where they needed to be. And every opportunity that we have on a call with the vice president or the president or the task force, it's not always. I mean, we have individual governors that step up and talk about their needs. But we also through the National Governors Association, the chairs, Larry Hogan from Maryland, and I can't think of a call that I've been on that he hasn't indicated, you know and stressed that we all working together, we know we need to dig down deep within our collective states. But we also need to just continue. We're together and raise the awareness of the need for PEOPIE, and so we're going to continue. They've been very responsive. When we had an outbreak and I needed additional Abbott testing machines, I called Administrator Gainer. He actually, you know, I set up a call. He got on the call with me. I walked through what the need was. We needed some rapid testing. We were able to get additional swaps, machines and additional test, and that's really gonna be at the same time. I was talking about that. I talked about the number of long term care facilities that we have in Iowa and to be able to deploy these Abbott machines, we once we get people trained with the testing supplies, that will really help us, kind of, you know, get in front of it and start Thio, scope the exposure and help identify who's been exposed to get them home and really stop the spread. So, you know, we continue to reach out and let him know, and it's just I think sometimes again, we get hung up on semantics. But But, you know, we've made him aware that we need, and every time that I've reached out, um, I have had really good I have a really good response toe. Ask about the predicted peak on April 7, according to AP. That's when the state signed a contract with University of Iowa. Can you help us understand? Like, what? What models are being used now for this peak and like what that underlying information. So these are conversations that have been ongoing for quite some time. So it was the i H M E, which is the model that came out from Washington, and I think all of us would concur that there's been tremendous swings, even within that model. So it is just a model based on various assumptions. I mean, we went from 128 essential desk to 1500 to 4 32 700 We said at the beginning that it didn't taken into account a lot of the mitigation efforts that we've actually implemented in the state of Iowa. You know, we've we've been targeted and we've done it on a case by case basis based on data, and a lot of that wasn't taken into account. So the DIA what Department of Public Health and Sarah let you step in here, too? Quite some time ago, reached out to the University of Iowa who have been great partners through all of this, to talk about how we can maybe take in to account some of the mitigation efforts that we put in place and full those into the modeling that was being done with h M E. But we we no, again, I just want to reiterate it's a model. You know what? It's based on assumptions. And as we've seen, I think throughout this entire process, the modeling has been wildly, uh, you know, off. And so we need to continue to do bottom line what Sarah and I say every day at this podium. And that is to take responsibility, practice individual responsibilities by staying home when you can work from home when you can, you know, practice social distancing. Limiting your trips to just essential service is essential trips and, um uh, really doing everything that we can to protect our most vulnerable and prevent overwhelming our health care system and our health care workers. And so if we just continue to do that, we're going to see, as they've said, I think the results that we're looking for, and most importantly, then we can stand at this podium and have a different conversation about how we stop opening up the state instead of how we continue to close it down. Can we have? This might be for Sarah, but can you walk because the governor is now? I think today may have been the first time you've given. It's a true percentage for recovery rate. Sarah, could you maybe take us through? Maybe a hypothetical person sort of start to finish how you determine when a person is recovered and what factors are metrics or follow ups or whatever. Go into that. Yeah. And what, Sarah did that? Yeah. Yeah, No. So I would be happy to do that. So every time we have a positive case, local public health agencies who, by the way, in addition to staff at long term care facilities are local public health agencies are doing just an incredible amount of work. And they were doing an incredible job to follow up on all of these positive cases when they do receive them. So local public health agencies will get an alert through our data collection system That lets them know that there's a positive case result for a resident there. County on the local public health goes to work immediately, and they follow up with the individual. They ask about clothes, household contacts. They ask about, you know, kind of work environment. You know, I is You've heard me say we do have concerns about the number of health care professionals that are turning up as positive cases in our state. And so certainly any exposure's as a health care that would have been identified in health care setting or a work setting. The local public health agencies ask that all of those sorts of questions, and then they would reach out either to the business, to the health care facility, those sorts of, um, places, high risk areas to let them know that there was a potential exposure to a cove, it positive patient from there. Then, local public health continues to follow up with those patients, and so they will continue to touch, touch at reach out, ask about symptoms, and somebody is considered recovered a. T east seven days after the onset of their symptoms and then once they have been a symptom free, including fever free for at least ah, period of 72 hours or three days. And so once a positive case meets the both of those metrics, then they would be considered recovered. In the data that we're reporting, we're Rachel, were Iowa. Go ahead. I don't mean er, um, I have a few questions that are from viewers. One. Do we know where a lot of these new cases are being contracted, but mostly happening there? Familial relations, nursing homes? Or are we starting to see community spread at places like grocery stores? And then we've also been getting some questions about why negative are being reported. So could you explain that and talk about if there are any false negative likely to be happening? Well, we've been in substantial spreads for quite some time. So to Sara's point, you should just assume that it's in your community no matter where you live, because we crossed that level a long, long time ago. And that's actually some of the reasons that we took the steps that we did because we had moved from community spread into substantial spreads statewide already wanna answer them? So I would just add that, you know, we continue to learn more about this virus all of the time. One thing we do know is that it passes quickly and easily among members of households, people who are who lived closely together. So in addition, Thio household contacts also within congregate living sites like long term care facilities and so those are the areas that we continue to be concerned about. But as the governor mentioned, we do presume that we have substantial community spread in all of our communities in Iowa, which wise is so important to stay home as much as you can leave only for essentials. If you do have to go to the grocery stores and one member of the family, don't take the entire family because if one person picks it up and you little live at home together, it's highly likely that there will be a transmission within the household unit. So, um, I think that we all need Thio presume that it's president. Everywhere we go, Ron, go ahead. Thank you, Governor. You indicated last week you're putting together an economic recovery task force, which I assume will be looking at a possible faced in reopening of the IOA economy. Does it look like that process will begin on the west side of Iowa and eventually moved east to the hot spot areas? Well, you need a reliable system of antibody testing to make that happen, and if so, is such a system being developed and how prepared you think the state is to make that transition to really think. Yeah, well, that's some of the questions and things that will walk through with the Economic Recovery Task Force. So we're gonna originally bring just a group of my department heads together this week to start to identify what some of those questions look like, what some of those metrics look like and then will broaden the scope out to bring some of the private sector onboard tow, walk through the economic recovery So it almost rod all of the above will be things that will be considering an every day. They're making progress, you know, Hopefully we continue to do more testing. Our goal is to continue, continue to d'oh even more testing to be able to do the contact, tracing to be able to really figure out where those hot spots are and really focus in on what we can do to help mitigate the the spread in those areas. And so, you know, I said, I've said all along that we potentially will be able to open up in different areas, but you know, it's too early right now. As I said at the beginning of right, my remarks way we feel good about the direction that we're heading. We're still not at the peak, and that's not anticipated until the end of the month. We will get through this. We really recover. I want to open up this state, you know, as soon as we can. But I want to do it in a responsible manner. We don't want to open it up just to have to shut things back down again. So we have to be very consistent. Ah, and again be relying on some data before we're able to do that. So we're looking at what all of those metrics look like. We're looking at what's available, um, to be able to stand up some of the testing, some of the contact tracing, the being able to test for antibodies. They're moving forward with that. There's a lot of talk about that right now, So every day and every week, we learn more and so So we'll continue. But you know, we're gonna do we're gonna do a dual path. At the same time, we're really monitoring and working on mitigation efforts that we put in place throughout the state by I was doing the right thing and being responsible and staying home. We're also going to start to look at what it looks like to begin to open back up, because when we start to hit those metrics, we want to be able to go. But we want to be able to do it in a responsible manner. Caroline Cummings Go ahead. Hi, Governor. I'm want to go back to the contract for supported by the AP. About I was own model. The contract says that model is intended for internal use only, and that you I would not be allowed to release any information without Dr Peabody or the not a date medical director's approval. So I'm wondering, what can the public reasonably to learn and see about any state modeling and or are you intending to keep all of that information private? Well, Caroline, I think you know the answer to that question. We've been very transparent throughout this entire process, and we know that it's important to keep Iowans informed and up to date on what we're doing and what we're basing our decisions on. And so ah, we'll work through that. We will release it at some point, but you know where every day again. I want to go back to This is a model and models are only as good as the assumptions that we feed into him. It didn't take into account. Ah, lot of the mitigation efforts that we had put in place. The University of Iowa has been a phenomenal partner throughout all of this. We look forward to taking a look at what some of those recommendations are as well as all of the other things that I just listed when I was answering rods. Question about additional things that will look at as we move through, um, this this process. But I appreciate their partnership. I appreciate them working with us, and again, it's a model, and I don't think anybody should ever lose sight of that. You're gonna be we're gonna have some new information. I'm gonna tease it out a little bit here for Iowans tomorrow with a new website. So Sarah and I'll be back tomorrow talking about that which will provide Iowans with some additional information as well. So we're always looking for ways that we can provide Iowans with the information that they expect. Thank you for that question, Todd with Casey, I had Good morning, Governor. You had met last week that we'd be getting close, maybe this week to talk about school going back. You got a timetable on that? Yeah. Yeah. Excuse me. I didn't mean to interrupt you again. Thank you for that question. There's asking about schools and when they can potentially open up. I had told them that in fairness, that them I would try to give them a two week notice, which would actually be at the end of this week. And so we'll be watching the data and sitting down with the team, the Department of Public Health, and taking a look at what that looks like moving forward. But in fairness so that they can make decisions, I'd like to be able to give them some indication by the end of this week, we're going on air innately news. Thank you. I just was wondering the health department guidance, a few businesses. Uh, the self report outbreaks that the business things will not be shared publicly. I'm just wondering why that information would not be public. So I want to know where these outbreaks were happening. Thank you for that question. I mean, S o R medical director makes determinations about and we do this all the time for all sorts of disease outbreak investigations at the point in time where we think that it becomes necessary to protect the public's health, That is the trigger for us to name a particular business or a particular entity. And so we'll continue to look at that as we move forward. Um, you know, at this particular point in time, we haven't had any businesses that have reported to us where we feel like to protect the public's health, that we need to name those businesses publicly. But in the event that we get there, we certainly will do that. Clark Hoffman, Capital Dispatch. Thank you, Governor. Well, I'm wondering going up that last question. If you can at least confirm how many cases work for grocery stores or food suppliers without naming the individual businesses, and then separately, can you talk about steps? I would have taken toa limit the use of temporary or agency employees in long term care facilities because some of these workers under normal circumstances might work in two or three care facilities week. Yeah, yes, I'll start with the long term care question that is one of the things that we talked to long term care facilities about when they have identified cases is that we want. We really want to make sure that, to the extent possible that employees are not moving between similar settings when they're taking care of patients, we certainly I want to prevent. The spread of the virus within long term care facilities has been a priority of ours for weeks. It continues to be a priority, and so we continue to ask those questions of facilities, and we have daily phone calls with facilities where outbreaks have been identified and those were the some of the things that we're tracking. I was just looking to see if I had Clark the answer to your first question about the number of people that work in grocery stores or the percent of all positive cases that work in grocery stores. I don't I have a 3% statistic for food service, but other than that, I don't have a specific related to grocery stores or other sorts of, um establishments. Two questions last second. The last question Katarina Iowa Public Radio. Hi, Governor. We've seen some outbreaks at a food processing plant in Iowa, and I'm wondering if the state is working with those facilities, especially the ones in Columbus Junction and in Tama County, and then before the state had discussed sending those rapid testing machines to potentially some of these places has happened yet or is that still being discussed? Can you get an update on that yet? So they are working closely with both facilities, doctor, but Daddy and her team has been in contact with them. Early on, we have deployed the abbot machines down to, um, one of the facilities. In addition to that, they were able to send additional swabs to work with the local public health. And they're the facilities public health team to administer, though, so that we could start to get some sense of again who was testing positive and negative, and to start to do the contact tracing to start Thio understand the scope of the exposure. So again, I was grateful that we were able to get the additional machines not only for those two facilities, but for the long term care facilities as well. In there some additional testing training that needs to be done with the abbot machines. And so we're hoping that that will take place this week. Last question. Ryan Foley, Associated Press. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um, it if the assumptions and some of the national models have been, uh, mistaking her off, can someone explain why it took until April? Doesn't for the state to finalize this agreement to create in Iowa a specific model? And has the state shared a data set with the university so that work can now get started? Well, I don't think you should assume that nothing no conversations or no dialogue happened prior to the contract being Ah, signed. That is not accurate. So we have been, as I've said three times, the University of Iowa has been a great partner throughout this whole process. And we appreciate them being a resource and the expertise that they're providing as well as, um, I was stayed in many just many facilities across the state have been very helpful. So, um, I assume we've provided the data for them. But Sarah, do you want? Yeah. So when we are just getting ready to provide data, one of things about modeling is you need a sufficient baseline of data so that any model can be actually informative of what you're trying to dio. And so I appreciate your question to the governor's point. We have been talking to the University of Iowa in the weeks prior to when that contract was signed. We're getting ready to finalize the data provisioned to them, but we really wanted to make sure that we had enough data so that any modeling that they did would actually be meaningful, based on what's actually happening here in Iowa and all along, the mitigation measures that we have been recommending to Governor Reynolds that has been based on what is actually happening here in Iowa. So do we have community spread? Do we have evidence of that? And as we see those things happen, those that that's what we're basing our recommendations on because, as the governor has explained, models you know, can be helpful. But they're not going to necessarily be prescriptive in terms of the actions that we take, and so we're going to continue to look at modeling and look at forecasting because we understand that we're gonna be in this for a while. But every recommendation that we've been making has been based on what is actually happening here in Iowa. The mitigation efforts that have been taken, Um, and so we just really appreciate Iowans taking those mitigation measures to heart, and we just need to really keep it up. And I know it's difficult, and I know it's hard. But those are the things that we can all be doing right now to protect the health of our families and our communities. Thank you. And I just want to reiterate Sarah said it earlier. But to those local public health officials, that or else so on the front lines, Thank you for the work that you're doing each and every day in communities all across our state. We appreciate it so much and just hang in there and keep up the great work. Thank you.