DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – The total number of people who died from the new coronavirus in Iowa exceeded 3,900, according to state data on Saturday morning, as the number of people tested decreased for the holiday.
As of 10:30 am on Saturday, the Iowa Department of Public Health said that 709 people who tested positive for COVID-19 were added to the state total, which now stands at 283,144 people. 243,218 people are considered recovered from the disease.
TestIowa, the state-run testing program, was closed during part of the New Year holiday. This was probably a factor that contributed to the reduced number of people who tested positive and fewer tests in general. A similar drop in testing, compared to other days, was seen around the Thanksgiving holiday in late November.
Another 48 people who died from COVID-19 were added to the Iowa total, which is 3,946 people since the pandemic began.
The number of people hospitalized for the disease in Iowa was 572 on Saturday morning, a net reduction of three. 119 of these people were in intensive care units, a net increase of two. 60 of these patients require the use of a ventilator, a net reduction of three. An additional 88 people were admitted to Iowa hospitals during the 24-hour reporting period, a rate consistent with data from the past few days.
Another 2,056 people had test results reported by public and private laboratories in the past 24 hours, significantly less than in recent days. The positivity rate for this batch of tests was 34.5%, down from 46.1% the previous day. The positivity rate calculated using this method may differ from the number on the state coronavirus panel, due to the fact that it uses the number of people tested, not the total number of tests, including people who have been tested repeatedly.
A total of 1,361,710 people in Iowa have been tested since the pandemic began.
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