Iowa's COVID hospitalization rate is on a steep incline, and yet COVID deaths in Iowa are on the decline. Which stands in stark contrast to last year at this time, when there were no COVID vaccines available. At which time the death toll and hospitalizations were both spiking dramatically.
Two charts published Monday along with the latest data released by the Iowa Department of Public Health clearly show the difference between last year, and this year.
Worth noting is that during the spike which occurred last fall, Iowans were more aggressively following safety measures like social distancing, and wearing masks. But now, with 69% of Iowa adults fully vaccinated, and 72% of Iowa kids aged 12 and up having received at least one dose of vaccine (more than 4.1 million doses total), the picture is literally quite different. Unlike last year's mirror image spikes, this year the hospitalization and death charts are showing movement in the opposite direction.
It's not clear whether this can be maintained, however. With the "COVID-19" pandemic dragging on far past it's namesake 2019 into 2020, 2021, and now about to enter into 2022, new variants continue to emerge. The first significantly more dangerous evolution of the virus was the Delta variant. Now the new, even more infectious Omicron variant has begun to spread. And each new variant brings the risk that our luck in developing vaccines so far, may not hold.
Whatever the future holds, right now in Iowa 1 in 10 covid tests is coming back positive. At last count, 665 Iowans were hospitalized with Covid-19, of which 154 were in intensive care. With 75.1% of those hospitalized and 85.6% of those in intensive care being less than fully vaccinated.
You can track the latest official Iowa Covid statistics at the website coronavirus.iowa.gov.
