Gazette Daily News Briefing, March 12
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Friday, March 12.
You should try and enjoy the sunny weather Friday, because we are going to be reminded it isn’t quite spring yet in the coming week. According to the National Weather Service it should be mostly sunny with a high near 55 degrees Friday with a mild wind. The forecast has rainy, and potentially snowy days ahead on Saturday through Monday, with colder highs expected next week even when the sun re-emerges.
COVID-19 likely will go down as the third-leading cause of death in Iowa in 2020. 4,667 Iowans were confirmed to have died as a result of the disease by Dec. 31, public health data shows.
Iowa’s first COVID-19 death was recorded on March 24, 2020.
If the state’s five-year averages for causes of death hold true for 2020, only cancer and heart disease will have claimed more Iowans’ lives than COVID-19 last year. COVID-19 also made 2020 the deadliest year in Iowa on record, and the increase in total deaths over the previous year was dramatic. Deaths in Iowa jumped more than 15 percent in 2020, according to state data, largely due to those nearly 5,000 COVID-19-related deaths.
There are many signs that the COVID-19 situation in the state is improving, as more and more Iowans become vaccinated for the disease. Still health experts caution that it is still important to practice safety precautions, to wear masks in public and wash hands frequently, until the spread of the disease can be brought under a semblance of control.
In other signs that things are improving, the Iowa Board of Regents announced Thursday that they will be lifting some international travel restrictions they put in place as the virus spread rapidly this time last year. Mount Mercy University announced that they are planning full in-person classes this fall. Several private colleges also joined Iowa’s universities in announcing they will have in-person graduation ceremonies this year.
Iowa Workforce Development reported a decrease in unemployment claims for the week of Feb. 28 for the second consecutive week. New claims increased from 4,216 to 5,531, but continuing claims decreased from 48,389 to 44,827. It marked the fewest continuing jobless claims since the week of Jan. 2.
About 40.9 percent of claims were related to coronavirus, according to state officials, which was up from 37.8 percent in the previous week and signaled a decrease in seasonal layoffs that are prevalent between November and February. Iowa’s unemployment numbers continue to hover at a higher rate than were seen prior than the pandemic, but they have bottomed out compared to the catastrophic peak of last spring.
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