CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa announced Wednesday that it will report the data in a new process, which will focus on the total number of tests performed instead of the people tested.
The change will significantly reduce the positivity rate of the state because it will divide the number of positive tests by the tests performed. Earlier, Iowa reported its COVID-19 data at the individual level.
The old method resulted in each Iowan appearing in the state data only once, no matter how many times it has been tested. For example, if someone has performed 30 tests, it was only reflected in the count of “tested individuals” in the state once, not 30 times.
This resulted in the state having a higher number of tests and a lower positivity rate. But Iowa did not show those numbers.
In October, the state public health department made the decision to show both the total tests performed and the people tested to reflect this challenge.
This change, which was announced on Tuesday, will focus solely on the total number of tests performed. The change is expected to be released sometime this week.
Director Garcia said he originally wanted to make the change sooner, but delayed the change because the state department was dealing with a wave of cases in November.
On vaccines, Governor Reynolds said Tuesday that the state’s supply of vaccines is increasing. He said the state’s supply of vaccines will increase to 62,000 doses, which he said represents a 24% increase over the 49,000 the state had been receiving.
He also said the White House said the Food and Drug Administration will make a decision on the emergency clearance for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine in late February.
Gov. Kim Reynolds also announced that the state will not move forward with Microsoft’s centralized vaccine appointment scheduling website COVID-19. Our research unit KCRG-TV9 i9 reported Tuesday that several counties were unsure whether they would use the site.
Reynolds cited the challenges other states have faced in vaccine deployment and talks held with vaccine partners over the decision not to move forward with the contract.
“It quickly became clear that the integration of the many existing registration and programming platforms used by some of our public health departments, pharmacies and other vaccine providers would not be possible, in a timely manner, their current systems, and we didn’t want to slow down the progress we’re making, ”Reynold said.
Instead, Reynolds said the state is shifting its focus from building a new system to optimizing the overall registration and programming process for Iowans.
Copyright 2021 KCRG. All rights reserved.