DES MOINES, Iowa – The Reynolds Administration announced on Monday that five new Test Iowa sites will launch this week to reach more Iowans who would like a COVID-19 test. The new locations include a drive-up test site in Dallas County and four clinic test sites in rural communities.
The Dallas County drive-thru site opens today from noon to 6 p.m. and is located in Waukee at South Middle School, 2350 SE LA Grant Parkway.
Additionally, four clinic sites will serve Page, Union, Carroll, and Crawford counties. Clinic sites are partnerships between the State of Iowa and local health care providers to increase access to testing in their communities. Clinics operate and staff the test sites. The state provides testing supplies and processes the samples through the State Hygienic Lab.
The new clinic sites include:
- Page County: Clarinda Regional Health Center, 220 Essie Davison Dr., Clarinda, opened June 3
- Union County: Greater Regional Health, 801 Wyoming Ave., Creston, opens Mon., June 8
- Carroll County: St. Anthony Regional Hospital, 311 South Clark Street, Carroll, opens Wed., June 10
- Crawford County: St. Anthony Clinic, 1820 4th Ave S., Denison, opens Wed., June 10
Individuals who wish to get tested at any clinic site or drive-up test site must first complete the online assessment at testiowa.com. They will then be directed to call the clinic to schedule an appointment.
Currently, there are drive-up sites in Polk, Linn, Scott, Wapello, Buena Vista, Black Hawk, Sioux, Marshall, and Pottawattamie counties. There is a clinic site in Des Moines County.
So far, 624,434 assessments on testiowa.com were completed. As of 10:30 a.m., 192,949 Iowans were tested, one in every 16 Iowans, with 21,918 testing positive. The overall positivity rate is 11.4 percent, on Sunday, the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) reports that the positivity rate was five percent. Among those testing positive, 11 percent were asymptomatic, 63 percent were symptomatic, 21 percent are still pending investigation, and five percent are unknown.
On Thursday last week, 365 tested positive, on Friday, 343, on Saturday, 119, and Sunday, 249.
For those testing positive, 18 percent are older than 60.
Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported, Iowa has seen a total of 40 outbreaks in long-term care facilities. Dr. Caitlin Pedati, the state epidemiologist and medical director for IDPH, said the department will continue to prioritize testing in those facilities.
“We’re also going to provide guidance on ways to continue to support testing. And this is of course, going to involve working very closely with these facilities, their staff and their residents. So we’re going to be offering baseline testing assessments to residents and staff and facilities. We’re going to continue to prioritize testing for any symptomatic staff or resident, and also continue to offer testing when individuals are transferred out of an acute care setting into a long term care setting. We’re also going to offer facility wide testing when a case is identified. And we’re also going to offer repeat weekly testing in order to help facilities manage these kinds of clusters,” she said during a press conference at the Iowa State Capitol building last Thursday.
Also, 23,030 Iowans have received a serology test for antibodies, with 1,972 positives for a positivity rate of 9 percent.
Iowa has slowly re-opened starting on May 1 in counties that had little to no viral activity. On June 1, many of the state’s restrictions expired last week, and the weekend before saw massive protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis Police custody.
The state won’t know if there will be a spike in cases resulting from those protests and expired restrictions until after June 14, as COVID-19 has a 14-day incubation period.
IDPH also reports 12,875 Iowans have recovered from COVID-19 for a recovery rate of 58.7 percent among those testing positive. To date, 607 Iowans have died from COVID-19, with 88 percent being older than 61, and over 50 percent among residents of long-term care facilities.
IDPH reports there are 265 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 with 85 in ICU, 53 on ventilators, and 27 being new admissions. The number of hospitalizations in the state trended downward with south-central Iowa (112) and northwest Iowa (80) seeing the most hospitalizations. South-central Iowa, including Des Moines, is on a downward trend. Simultaneously, the number of hospitalizations in northwest Iowa, including Sioux City, has stabilized and is well under their peak of 110 hospitalizations on May 25.
Statewide there are 3,690 inpatient beds, 492 ICU beds, and 755 ventilators available.