Coronavirus Update – April 20, 2020

Okay we’ll go ahead and get this started this morning, and of course we’ll start with an update on the numbers. Today, we have 257 new positive cases for a total of 3,159 positive cases. We have no new counties to report, so we have, still, 82 total counties in the state of Iowa. We have 1,013 negative cases today, for a total of 22,661 negative tests. The State Hygienic Lab has 7,556 tests available. We have 1,235 Iowans that have recovered for a recovery rate of 39%. I am very sorry to have to report that we did have 4 additional deaths, for a total of 79 deaths. And, again, 48% of all deaths in Iowa are among residences in long term care facilities. Across all of the RMCC regions yesterday there were 214 COVID-19 patients hospitalized; 23 were admitted in the last 24 hours; 91 patients are being treated in ICUs; and 58 are on ventilators. Also, in hospitals across the state, there are 4,402 inpatient beds, 552 ICU beds, and 691 ventilators that are available for patient care. And just as a reminder again, for more information and a breakdown of data by region go to coronavirus.iowa.gov.

We had an additional – we had one at Iowa Premium National Beef, which is in Tama County. And I’m sure Iowans also saw our case count climb significantly, and I just want to point out that 261, or 67%, of the 389 positive cases that were reported on Sunday, can be attributed to the fact that we doing surveillance testing. That’s being conducted at the meat processing facilities, so those were included in those numbers. We will continue to see clusters of positive cases in these types of facilities because COVID-19 spreads quickly and easily among people in close –

… Will be impacted so we’re going to continue to do, we must do our part to keep them open in a safe and responsible way. The Department of Public Health is working closely with our long-term care facilities, and our food processors, that are experiencing not only a decrease in attendance or when employees have tested positive – by identifying potential issues early they can deploy a strike team to conduct even more surveillance testing, contract tracing, to understand the virus activity; identify and isolate people who are sick; and implement, where possible –or if they have additional mitigation efforts to slow the spread and protect –

… At the Iowa Medical and classification Center, had tested positive for COVID-19. And this is the first positive case identified in any of Iowa’s correctional facilities. The Department of Corrections was proactive early on, by implementing significant mitigation measures as soon as Iowa’s first COVID-19 cases were identified; and Director Skinner and her team have continued to take the situation seriously and responsibly. I’ve asked Director Skinner to join me today to provide an overview of what the Department of Corrections is doing to mitigate the spread of the virus in facilities as well as, really, helping us provide our workforce with the PPE that they need to be safe. So with that, I’ll have Director Skinner.

[Director Dr. Beth Skinner speaks]

[Audio missing for conclusion of press conference]

Reynolds, K.K. [DMRegister]. (2020, April 20). Gov. Kim Reynolds updates Iowans on the COVID-19 outbreak in Iowa (4.20.20). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LKbT5V2vA0] Retrieved on February 14, 2022 from https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvSD6lYlbNdrZ9GFcZo6llg.