DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – The total number of people killed by the new coronavirus in Iowa exceeded 3,900, according to state data as of Saturday morning, as the number of people tested decreased during the holidays.
At 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning, the Iowa Department of Public Health said 709 people who tested positive for COVID-19 were added to the state total, which is now 283,144 people. It is estimated that 243,218 people are recovering from the disease.
TestIowa, the state-run testing program, was closed for parts of the New Year holidays. This probably contributed to the reduction in the number of people who tested positive and to a smaller number of tests in general. A similar drop in testing, compared to other days, was observed near the Thanksgiving holiday in late November.
A further 48 people were killed in COVID-19 in Iowa, which is 3,946 people since the start of the pandemic.
The number of people hospitalized due to the disease in Iowa was 572 as of Saturday morning, a net decrease of three. 119 of these people were in intensive care units, a net increase of two. 60 of these patients require the use of one ventilator, a net decrease of three. An additional 88 people were admitted to Iowa hospitals during the 24-hour reporting period, a rate consistent with recent data days.
An additional 2,056 people obtained test results reported by public and private laboratories over the past 24 hours, a number significantly lower than in recent days. The positivity rate of this test batch was 34.5%, down from 46.1% the day before. The positivity rate calculated with this method may differ from the number of the state coronavirus board, due to the fact that it uses the number of people tested, not the overall number of tests, including people who have been tested repeatedly.
A total of 1,361,710 people in Iowa have been tested since the beginning of the pandemic.
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