Floyd County COVID-19 7-day positivity rate falls; school district mask requirement pulled back

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The weekly COVID-19 test positivity average fell a little last week, but was still above two weeks ago.

The absentee rate in Charles City School District schools also declined a little, resulting in a face covering requirement being stopped at the Innovative Campus.

The face covering requirement remains for students and staff at the high school, middle school and Washington Elementary, according to the school district’s website, charlescityschools.org. The COVID-19 mitigation effort goes into effect when an attendance center’s three-day rolling average of student illness absence rate is 7% or higher.

As of Monday, the rate at the attendance centers was 8.0% at the high school, 7.7% at the middle school and, 7.1% at Washington Elementary, requiring face coverings in those buildings.

The innovative campus three-day rolling absence rate was 5.5% and Lincoln Elementary was 5.1%, the school “Illness Dashboard” said.

As of Monday the Floyd County seven-day COVID-19 positivity test rate — the percentage of all COVID-19 tests taken in the previous seven days that had positive results — was 18.4%. The 14-day positivity test rate was 20.1% for Floyd County.

Statewide the seven-day positivity rate was 24.1% and the 14-day positivity test rate was 25.2%

According to the state COVID-19 date website, coronavirus.iowa.gov, another person in Floyd County died as a result of COVID-19, with the total death toll attributed to the disease increasing from 58 to 59.