Hunter
07/14/22
COVID cases are starting to rise in Iowa and across the nation.
The Iowa Department of Public Health says that cases jumped 30% in the last week alone, with nearly 5200 new cases. Case counts have been in the 3900 range for the last four weeks.
Not counting at-home positive tests that haven’t been reported, Iowa has had 805,363 cases in the last two years. Deaths attributed to coronavirus since the pandemic started are now 9718.
Nationally, COVID is still responsible for an average 300 deaths per day.
The state is back to having no counties in low transmission; Johnson and Linn Counties are among dozens now categorized with high transmission; several dozen more counties are in the “substantial” category. Counties in moderate transmission are now in the minority.
Johnson County had a slight uptick in cases last week, from 338 to 366. Linn County, however, jumped 39 percent in the last week, reporting 498 new cases.
The BA.5 variant is now the most dominant strain of COVID-19 in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Reports say that so far there is no evidence that this variant causes more serious illness. However, BA.5 has shown to be highly transmissible.
Infectious disease experts say that even though new infections are on the rise, the impact of BA.5 is unlikely to be on the scale of the surge seen last winter — in part because the country is better equipped to manage it.