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COVID-19 cases spike to record rate in Floyd County

COVID-19 cases spike to record rate in Floyd County
Floyd County 14-day rolling average of new COVID-19 cases. (Bob Steenson graphic/coronavirus.iowa.gov)
By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The number of new COVID-19 cases has increased by the fastest rate in the past two weeks since the first case was reported 4½ months ago.

Forty-six new positive Floyd County cases were reported on the state’s coronavirus statistics website for the period from July 28 to Monday. Aug. 10, bringing the total number of positive cases that have occurred in the county to 156.

Previous to the latest spike there had been an average of 0.85 new cases per day in the county since the pandemic began and the county’s first case was reported on March 20.

In the last 14 days the rate has been 3.3 cases per day on average, almost four times as many per day as the previous average.

The difference isn’t just more testing, either. The number of tests per day done in the county has remained fairly steady over the entire pandemic period so far, and has actually gone down from earlier months when sometimes more than 100 tests per day were run.

From March 20 to July 27 the average number of tests that had returned positive was 4.7%.

From July 28 to Aug. 10 the average number of tests that have been positive has been 14.6%, more than three times higher.

Both the 14-day rolling average of new cases and the 14-day average of percent positive test results in Floyd County are at the highest levels since the pandemic began.

Gail Arjes, administrator of Floyd County Public Health, said at the county Board of Supervisors meeting Monday morning that she spent much of her weekend tracking down new cases.

“It’s getting to be where people are out and about more, there’s large gatherings,” she said. “People that are the active cases, I can tie them back to some large events that have happened in the county. It gets to be kind of frustrating.”

Arjes said she needs more staff help.

“Somehow we’re going to have to track all the schools in Floyd County – I think I’ve got six of them – we’ll need to know who can come to school and who can’t, who’s an exposure, who’s not,” she said.

“That’s going to be almost a full-time job in itself, tracking positive cases and who their contacts are. I’m pretty much doing it all myself, making contact with all these people. But it’s not just making the contact with the person. It’s then how are we going to relay that information to the school to make them aware of who can be at the school and who cannot?” Arjes said.

She talked with the supervisors about some CARES Act funding that might be available, and Supervisor Chairman Roy Schwickerath said he’d be willing to call a special meeting if need be to work with the County Board of Health, which direct’s Arjes’ department, to do what is needed to give that board the authority to apply for that funding.

Arjes said, “If we could find answers to that sooner than later and it’s possible to get that process going it would help me out tremendously, because I’m getting pretty overwhelmed.”

Statewide, the COVID-19 website which uses information from the Iowa Department of Public Health and other sources, shows a total of 49,073 cases in the state out of 524,446 tested, a positive test rate of 9.4%.

Statewide there have been a total of 934 deaths attributed to COVID-19, and 37,333 of the positive cases are listed as recovered.

In Floyd County, 109 of the 156 active cases are listed as recovered, and two people have died because of COVID-19, on May 2 and June 26.

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