Gazette Daily News Briefing, December 21
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for December 21, 2023.
According to the National Weather Service it will be mostly cloudy on Thursday in the Cedar Rapids area, with the chance for rain increasing after 3 p.m. and heading later into Thursday evening. The high temperature will settle in at around 43 degrees.
Bald eagle surveys in Iowa in 2023 showed a return to normal after 2022, the worst nesting season for many years because of bird flu, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources reported.
Volunteers in January 2023 counted more than 2,900 eagles along 1,663.5 miles of Iowa waterways, which works out to almost two eagles per river mile surveyed, the DNR reported. The most eagles were spotted on the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers but the highest density (eagles per mile) was on the Iowa River.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has affected both domestic poultry and wild birds in Iowa, and eagles are no exception.
In 2022, the number of young bald eagles fledged per nest in Iowa dropped below the threshold of one per nest for the first time in the survey’s history. Only an average of .88 young were fledged per Iowa nest in 2022.
The DNR numbers indicated that considering the rate of successful nests, a possible 720 young eagles were fledged by Iowa nests in 2023.
If you haven’t gotten your COVID-19 vaccine updated, yet, you are not alone.
According to reporting from the Iowa Capitol Dispatch, the number of Iowans who have up-to-date COVID-19 vaccinations has plummeted in recent months, after federal officials ended a public health emergency declaration and there was a sense that the risk of catching the virus had lowered.
Data from towa Department of Health and Human Services indicated about 10 percent of Iowans were considered immunized against COVID-19. That is calculated using the state’s database of immunization records.
The HHS also now lists the chance of catching COVID-19 in Iowa as Very High, with the number of flu infections also rising during recent months.
More than 60 percent of Iowans were vaccinated during the worst throes of the coronavirus pandemic, but those initial vaccinations have become less effective over time.
As we head into a busy travel week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now urging health care providers to vaccinate their patients and to recommend antiviral medications to those with flu or COVID. It has also provided a “vaccination conversation guide” intended to address concerns about the vaccine.
