Total number of COVID-19 hospitalizations falls below 400 for the first time since early October

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – The total number of people hospitalized with the novel coronavirus in Iowa has fallen below 400 after spending more than three and a half months above that level, according to new data from ‘State Sunday.

At 10:30 a.m., the Iowa Department of Public Health said 847 people who tested positive for COVID-19 had been added to the state’s total as of the same time on Saturday morning. A total of 312,811 people have tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic. A total of 274,103 people are considered recovered, an increase of 914.

One additional death from COVID-19 has been reported to the state in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 4,488 people in Iowa.

382 people are hospitalized in Iowa with the virus, a net decrease of 37 since the last report on Saturday. This is the lowest total number of hospitalizations since Oct. 5, 2020. Iowa has seen a total of 109 days in a row in this stretch of at least 400 patients hospitalized simultaneously with COVID-19. The previous longest day streak above 400 patients was six in early May.

Hospitals in Iowa were at their maximum so far at 1,527 patients as of November 18, 2020.

79 of those people are in intensive care units, a net increase of three. 36 patients required ventilator use, a net decrease of two. 51 newly admitted patients were recorded in the last 24-hour reporting period, down from 64 people in the previous period.

Another 2,751 people had test results reported by public and private labs in the past 24 hours. The positivity rate for this batch of tests was 30.8%, slightly higher than the 29.0% the day before. The positivity rate calculated using this method may differ from the number on the state’s coronavirus dashboard, due to the fact that it uses the number of people tested, not the total number of tests, including people who have been tested multiple times.

A total of 1,447,213 people in Iowa have been tested since the start of the pandemic.

The state did not update its vaccination data on Saturday morning.

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