Rate of new COVID-19 cases per day declines in Floyd County and the state

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

It’s likely too early to draw conclusions, but for the moment the number of daily new cases of COVID-19 in Floyd County — and in the state — appears to be on the decline.

And after almost two weeks where the positivity rate was above 30% in Floyd County, that rate has fallen into the mid- to low 20% range.

The positivity rate is the average over the previous 14 days of the percentage of COVID-19 tests that have come back positive. The state uses the 14-day rolling average to even out individual day highs and lows and get a better idea of the general trend — is the rate increasing or decreasing?

The Floyd County positivity rate set a high mark on Nov. 15 when it reached 32.9%, meaning almost a third of the almost 1,000 COVID-19 tests administered in the 14 days prior to Nov. 15 came back as positive for the disease.

The positivity rate was listed as 22.0% on Monday by the Iowa COVID-19 data site, coronavirus.iowa.gov. The rate was 22.7% on Saturday and 22.5% on Sunday.

In Floyd County, the total number of reported COVID-19 cases climbed to 1,054 on Monday, after passing the millennial mark a week earlier.

For the past several weeks, Floyd County had been adding 100 or more new cases every three to five days, but in the past week the number has gone up only 49 cases.

Two more deaths were added to the Floyd County total since last Thursday, reaching 16. The state and the county no longer identify what age range the victims were in individual counties.

Officials warn that cases across the country could climb considerably in the coming weeks depending on the number of exposures that occurred during the Thanksgiving holiday.

According to reporting by Iowa Capital Dispatch, the number of new cases per day in Iowa has dropped off significantly, but still remains eight times what the number per day was at the end of April.

The state’s daily average of 2,432 new cases in the week ending Sunday was down almost by half from the level two weeks earlier, the New York Times reported. The state added 1,509 new cases on Sunday, according to the Times.

Part of the drop in cases could be because of reduced testing over the holidays. The Iowa Department of Public Health reported 1,297 tests on Sunday, for example, a week after 27,032 tests were reported on Nov. 23.

On a per-capita basis, Iowa ranked 13th in the nation in the average daily number of new cases over the past week, the New York Times reported. Iowa had ranked third, behind North Dakota and South Dakota, for weeks at one point. Those two states still top the nation in per-capita cases, Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.

The Times reported 24 deaths related to COVID-19 in Iowa Sunday, with the daily average up 37% over the past two weeks. The state reported 2,403 COVID patients have died in Iowa during the pandemic, 93% of them age 60 or older.

Nursing homes continue to be COVID hot spots in Iowa. As of Monday, there were 156 active outbreaks, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported. The state defines an “outbreak” as three residents or staff who test positive for the virus. A nursing home must be free of new cases for 28 days before it is considered clear of an outbreak.

The state reported Nov. 23 that an outbreak had been identified at the 11th Street Chautauqua care facility in Charles City. As of Monday, there were a total of 26 residents and staff there who had tested positive for COVID-19.

Iowa reported 4,951 persons have tested positive at long-term care centers state-wide, and 1,063 have died at the facilities since the pandemic started.