Gazette Daily News Briefing, December 19 and December 20

This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Saturday December 19 and Sunday December 20.

This weekend’s weather will look to continue our brief trend at or above freezing into the middle of next week. After that, it’s going to get really cold again.

But, living in the present, the National Weather Service predicts that on Saturday there will be a high of 34 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area. Despite some patchy fog Saturday morning, it should be mostly cloudy throughout the day. Then, on Sunday, it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 36 degrees. Low temperatures for both days will be in the mid to low 20s.

For the first time in more than a month, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported no new coronavirus-related deaths in the 24-hour period ending at 11 a.m. Friday. The last time that happened was Nov. 7.

And Friday’s zero deaths followed the 100 deaths reported Thursday. To date, 3,451 Iowans have died of COVID-19, according to deaths confirmed by the Iowa Department of Public Health. Of those, 242 Iowan deaths from the virus were reported since Monday.

In positive news, the number of Iowans hospitalized with the virus continues to decline. On Friday, 701 Iowans were hospitalized, down from the 746 reported Thursday. The number of patients in intensive care dropped from 146 to 136.

As expected, Moderna’s vaccine for COVID-19 was approved for use by the FDA on Friday. This vaccine joining the already approved vaccine created by Pfizer and BioNTech should increase the rate that the vaccine can be disseminated nationwide, starting with hospital workers and nursing home residents.

With the nation struggling with the pandemic and a shaky economy, enrollment across Iowa’s public, private and community colleges this fall dropped 4.7 percent compared to a year ago — nearly double the 2.5 percent decline nationally in postsecondary enrollment.

Fall 2020 college and university enrollment in Iowa dropped across all sectors, with community colleges taking a 5.8 percent hit and nonprofit private campuses collectively losing 3 percent of their total enrollment, according to Iowa College Aid, a state agency charged with making college accessible for Iowans.

Iowa’s first poet laureate, Marvin Bell, died this week. He was 83. Bell was the first poetry editor of the Iowa Review literary journal and taught poetry for many years at the University of Iowa’s nationally revered Writer’s Workshop. His works spans 45 years and 21 books of poetry, as well as letters, essays and interviews.

I would like to close out this briefing with a poem he wrote to his wife, Dorothy.