IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Deaths from the coronavirus in Iowa reached their highest level since the beginning of the pandemic Friday, while the state released data that better reflects the number of virus tests that labs report.
The Iowa Department of Public Health said that 84 more residents were reported dead from the virus, a one-day high for the second straight day after recording 70 deaths on Thursday.
Before Friday, the state of 3.1 million people has been averaging between 25 and 30 daily virus-related deaths for weeks. Their total since the beginning of the pandemic surged past 2,600 on Friday.
The rapid rise in deaths comes after the state’s caseload peaked in mid-November, overwhelming hospitals. The dire situation prompted Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds to enact a limited mask mandate and tighten other mitigation measures for the first time in months.
Reynolds said this week that she hates to see high death numbers but that she was “encouraged by the steady progress we’re making,” citing drops in new cases and hospitalizations since her measures went into effect. Still, Iowa has reported 2,900 new cases for each of the past two days.
Meanwhile, the health department announced Friday that it had added data to its dashboard that gives a more detailed accounting of the total number of virus tests conducted.
Previously, the state released data about tests only in a format that related to an individual. Those who tested negative or positive on multiple occasions only had their most recent test results included.
The new data shows that more than 2.54 million tests have been reported this year for state residents and nearly 260,000 were positive. That reflects about 1.23 million individuals who were tested and 240,000 confirmed infections.
It’s unclear whether the change will help the public better understand how the state calculates positivity rates, which are key indicators of community spread and used to determine school openings and closings.
Independent researchers routinely report much higher positivity rates than the state does, based on publicly available data. The department said Friday that the averages will continue to be calculated based on individuals tested, not total tests.
The website also added a new calculation Friday that shows the number of individuals positive per population of 100,000 statewide and in each of 99 counties over the last two weeks. The department said those trends are “more comprehensive indicators of recent virus activity” than case and positivity rates alone.
As of Friday, 405 out of every 100,000 residents in the state had tested positive in the last seven days, down 1% from the prior week.
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