Gazette Daily News Briefing, August 6
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Friday, August 6th.
There will be a slight chance for rain Friday, but mostly it will be sunny and a bit warmer than it has been previously this week. According to the National Weather Service, it will be mostly sunny with a high of 89 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area Friday. There will be a 20 to 30 percent chance of rain throughout the day, but this is expected to be the exception even if it does appear.
Iowa received 3.98 inches of rain in July, slightly less than normal, according to the latest Water Summary Update.
However, the continued lack of rainfall led to the expansion of drought conditions and the return of the extreme drought classification for the first time since April.
About 75 percent of the state is rated in some level of drought, with severe drought covering over one quarter of Iowa, and extreme drought covering almost 7 percent.
The extreme drought designation covers the largest area of the state in nearly a year.
The rise of the contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 led to more masking edicts Thursday.
As the rate of COVID-19 transmission worsened Thursday from “moderate” to “substantial” in Johnson County according to federal data, Iowa City announced that anyone going inside a city-owned facility now must wear a mask regardless of vaccination status.
The directive follows a similar one issued Tuesday by the city of Cedar Rapids. There the virus transmission rate is even worse. Linn County is rated “high” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based on the number of new cases per capita.
Earlier this year, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law that prohibited local governments from enforcing mask mandates indoors. But the law does not prohibit cities from requiring masks in their own facilities.
Concerned parents and educators pleaded Thursday with the Iowa State Board of Education to ask the governor to rescind a new law banning school districts from requiring masks in classrooms as COVID-19 cases again are spreading quickly just as the academic year nears.
In late May, the Republican-led Legislature adopted House File 847, which among other things prohibited locally elected school boards from mandating their students or staff wear masks in district facilities. The bill’s managers said they brought the measure forward because hundreds of constituents had asked to be freed from governments imposing on their freedoms. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds immediately signed the bill into law.
UnityPoint Health, one of the largest health care providers in Iowa, announced Thursday that its 33,000 employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by November or face being out of a job.
UnityPoint Health — which operates St. Luke’s Medical Center in Cedar Rapids and other facilities across Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin — now joins several other health care systems nationwide that recently made the decision to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations among their staffs.
The West Des Moines-based health system announced its employees — whether they provide direct patient care or not — be vaccinated by Nov. 1. Employees who choose not to be vaccinated will be subject to voluntary resignation or termination.
With the Iowa football season rapidly approaching, there will be more Hawkeye news to come soon. If you want to have the latest football insights emailed directly to you, sign up for Leah Vann's exclusive weekly Talkin' Hawks newsletter at thegazette.com/hawks
Be sure to subscribe to The Gazette Daily news podcast, or just tell your Amazon Alexa enabled device to “enable The Gazette Daily News skill" so you can get your daily briefing by simply saying “Alexa, what’s the news?
If you prefer podcasts, you can also find us on iTunes or wherever else you find your Podcasts.
