COVID cases decline with state poised to reduce reporting

State health officials are expected to switch away from an online dashboard to display COVID-19 data at the end of this week, which was the third in a row to have declining new reported infections for Iowa.

That reporting change — along with eliminating a requirement for clinical labs to report confirmed infections by the coronavirus — was announced in February and is set to take effect April 1.

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services plans to include COVID-19 data in its weekly respiratory virus surveillance report. It’s unclear how much information about the virus will appear in that report, which contains a wide array of data about influenza but lesser info about other respiratory pathogens such as cold viruses and RSV.

The switch might also delay COVID-19 reporting: The state’s final report Wednesday on the dashboard includes testing data for the previous seven days, whereas the most-recent respiratory surveillance report included data that was more than a week old.

The dashboard report on Wednesday included 1,515 new confirmed COVID-19 infections among people who were not previously infected during the pandemic. That was a 10% decrease from the previous week.

HHS also reported a total of 2,145 positive tests, which includes reinfections. That was a 5% decrease.

Hospitalizations were down slightly from a week ago, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of infected people receiving inpatient treatment at Iowa hospitals averaged 164 last week, a 1% decrease from the previous week.

The state also reported 28 new deaths related to COVID-19 infections for a total of 10,797 since the start of the pandemic.

The virus’ threat in Iowa is low in the vast majority of counties, according to a CDC analysis of infection and hospitalization data.