Gazette Weekend News Update, May 16 and May 17
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your news update for the weekend of May 16th and 17th.
The summary for this weekend’s weather? Stretches of mostly cloudy, sometimes warm, weather followed by stretches of rain. Repeat.
According to the National Weather Service, Saturday will start off mostly cloudy and warm, with a high near 74 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area. Then there will be a slight chance of rain Saturday after 4:00 p.m. followed by a good chance of heavy rain and thunderstorms after 10:00 p.m.
The chance for rain will continue into Sunday morning until 8:00 a.m., when it will revert back to being mostly cloudy. This time it should be cooler and windier, with a high of 66 degrees and heavy wind gusts. There will be a mild chance of rain that will scale back upward as the day turns into evening, with the potential for more thunderstorms. After the rain Sunday night it will return, once again, to mostly cloudy skies.
Several businesses, including restaurants and gyms, reopened with social distancing restrictions still in place across the state of Iowa Friday, and due to the long incubation period of COVID-19 and the fact that many who are infected with it only present mild symptoms, it will take us until June to truly figure out whether all this was a good idea or not. In documents revealed Friday, researchers with the University of Iowa predicted in a report dated May 4th that there would have been hundreds of more deaths in the state through the end of May even if the restrictions put in place by Gov. Kim Reynolds in April had remained in place. They also argued that easing restrictions now and in the near future could prove to make things even worse.
For her part, Gov. Reynolds insisted Friday that she is operating based on several downward trends throughout the state, and that increased testing will allow the state’s healthcare system to keep the problem in front of it. She also warned that not reopening the state would have a “social cost,” including high unemployment, rising domestic abuse and food insecurity.
The state Friday confirmed 18 additional deaths from the disease, again hitting one of the highest daily death totals so far. However, in potentially promising news, hospitalizations for the coronavirus appear to be plateauing in the past week and a half.
What will happen next? We will see. In the meantime, stay safe out there.
For this reason, wash your hands often, maintain a six foot distance from others where possible, and consider wearing a mask when you go out and are going to be interacting with people. If you want info on what types of masks to wear and how to wear them, do a web search on the topics CDC, COVID-19, and masks. I will add a link about masks in the write up of this briefing that you can find on thegazette.com as always.
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