One week, COVID-19 hospitalizations go up, and new reported cases go down. The next week, new cases go up, and hospitalizations go down. That’s been the state of the pandemic in Iowa over the past month: both metrics alternatively rising and falling, although each have been gradually increasing overall since late March.The trend continued this week, according to data released Wednesday by the Iowa Department of Public Health and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Iowa increased even as the number of new reported cases decreased from the previous week.There were 186 people hospitalized with the disease in Iowa as of Wednesday, the federal health department reported, an increase of 19 from the week before. Of those, 25 were in intensive care units for COVID-19 complications.New reported COVID-19 cases, meanwhile, decreased to 3,987 this week, or about 570 new cases throughout the state each day, on average, according to the state health department. That’s down from about 612 per day last week. The past two weeks, however, have had the two highest numbers of new reported cases since the first week of March.The number of reported cases over the past several months likely does not capture the full extent of the pandemic in Iowa, as people who test positive using increasingly prevalent at-home tests may not report their results to the state health department, and those who are positive bu …
COVID-19 hospitalizations up, new cases down as pandemic continues gradual rise in Iowa – Des Moines Register
