DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – The death toll from a new coronavirus in Iowa has shown a big change on Saturday morning in the latest reports from state officials.
On Sunday, at 10:30 a.m., the Iowa Department of Public Health said an additional 250 people who died from COVID-19 had been added to the state’s total, which is now at 4,901 since the beginning of the pandemic. This is the highest number of deaths added in a 24-hour period, exceeding the 202 added in total on the morning of December 8, 2020.
The state is continuously updating the number of people who have died from the virus, adding counts from previous days, when new data are reported to IDPH. This can occasionally lead to large data changes, sometimes with a long delay of days or weeks. It was not immediately clear why the jump occurred in the last 24 hours, although none of the reported deaths were attributed to the last three calendar days.
In addition, another 645 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing the state total to 319,203 people as of March 2020. 282,477 people are considered to have recovered from the disease.
A total of 358 people are hospitalized in Iowa due to COVID-19, showing a net decrease of 18 since Saturday morning’s report. 94 of these people are in intensive care units, a net increase of 10. 29 of these patients require the use of a ventilator, a net decrease of two. 55 people have been newly hospitalized in Iowa hospitals due to the disease in the last 24 hours, similar to 48 new patients in the previous reporting period.
Another 2,425 people had the results of tests reported by public and private laboratories in the last 24 hours. The positivity rate for this batch of tests was 26.6%, higher than the 17.7% of the previous day. The positivity rate calculated using this method may differ from the number on the state coronavirus dashboard due to the fact that it uses the number of people tested, not the total number of tests, including people who have been tested repeatedly.
A total of 1,472,768 people in Iowa have been tested since the beginning of the pandemic.
A total of 248,832 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Iowa to date. 132,466 people received only a first dose, while 58,183 received both doses required for either the Moderna vaccine or the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
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