Floyd Valley Healthcare To Hold Virtual Fund Raiser
(Le Mars) — Floyd Valley Healthcare will hold its annual beer and wine tasting fund raising gala this Saturday, however, because of the COVID-19 virus, the event will be virtual. Amy Harnack serves as the Foundation Director for Floyd Valley. She says the activities will be featured online beginning at 7:00 p.m.
Harnack says she will be the emcee for the evening’s activities. She says the auction will feature many unique and wonderful items.
Harnack says originally officials at Floyd Valley had established a goal of raising $60,000, but that was before COVID-19 had struck. She says the local hospital did not designate a specific item of need for the hospital with this year’s fund raiser.
The Floyd Valley Foundation Director again offers the website where the auction items can be found.
Fair Board Re-elects Officers To Serve 2021
(Le Mars) — The Plymouth County 4-H Agricultural Society, perhaps better known as the Plymouth County Fair held its annual meeting last evening (Thursday). Each of the diretors whose terms were expiring were all re- elected to serve another term on the fair board. They include: Alise Allan, Chad Peters, Bob Kabisch, Loren Schempf, Candice Nash-Farrer, Gail Schoenrock, Brad Harvey, Matt Reuter, and John Ahlers. Following the annual meeting, the directors conducted their regular monthly meeting. Each of the officers were re-elected to their posts. Loren Schempf was re-elected as the president of the fair board, John Ahlers was re-elected as the vice president, Gail Schoenrock was re-elected to serve as the fair board’s
secretary, and Michael Bietelspacher was again elected as the treasurer for the fair board.
Fair Board Officers: (left to right) John Ahlers – Vice President, Gail Schoenrock – Secretary, Michael Bietelspacher – Treasurer, and Loren Schnepf – President.
Governor Reynolds Holds Second News Conference This Week On The Spread COVID-19
(Des Moines) — Governor Kim Reynolds held yet another news conference yesterday addressing the continued surge of COVID-19 cases across the state. Reynolds says since October 1st more than 37,000 new cases of positive COVID-19 have been reported statewide. The governor says the average positivity rate across the state is at 21.8 percent. Reynolds says new cases were primarily with adults.
Reynolds says the spread of the coronavirus is all across the state, and now it isn’t isolated to the more dense populated communities.
The Iowa governor reported that hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients continues to climb.
Reynolds reports that most Iowa hospitals are still performing elective surgeries, although they may scale back on the number of procedures performed, if additional beds are needed to accommodate COVID-19 virus patients.
Reynolds says from this point forward, health department officials will have a breakdown of the ages of hospital patients as it relates to COVID-19 positive cases.
Some Schools Now Plan To Convert To Online Education System
(Des Moines) — Because of the increase and continued spread of COVID-19 virus across the state, some schools are reporting they will implement either a hybrid learning system, or an entire online education program. Ann Lebo, the Director of the Iowa Education Department attended the governor’s news
conference today, and offered an update on the schools.
Lebo says the state’s education department has sent updated information to school superintendents notifying them of new restrictions and changes.
Governor Reynolds Purchasing 360K More COVID Test Kits
(Des Moines, IA) — As COVID-19 positivity rates and hospitalizations sharply rise in Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds is purchasing another 360-thousand test kits from a Utah company for the state’s free “Test Iowa” sites. Reynolds said the state’s current supply should last through December 11th. Finding an opening for a test is difficult statewide, through both the
state-run Test Iowa program as well as privately-run testing operations.
Reynolds said officials are looking at ways to expand the number of tests the Iowa Hygienic Lab is able to process daily. The governor said, “I’m proud of how we’ve continued to expand testing and we’re not going to stop.” Neither Reynolds nor her staff have yet confirmed how much the state is spending for
a second batch of COVID test kits. The first 540-thousand cost 26-million dollars.
4337 New COVID Cases in Iowa, 30 Deaths, 1208 Hospitalizations
(Des Moines, IA) — The Iowa Department of Public Health is reporting four-thousand-337 new positive COVID-19 tests, increasing the state’s total to 170-thousand-358 cases. This is the sixth straight day of more than four-thousand positive tests in the state. Thirty more Iowans have died from coronavirus complications which brings the death toll to one-thousand-928.
The one-thousand-208 patients hospitalized with COVID sets another daily record. Two-hundred-15 of those patients are in intensive care and 101 are on ventilators. Ninety-three of Iowa’s 99 counties currently have a 14-day average positivity rate of at least 15 percent. The Iowa Board of Health met today (Thursday) and passed a resolution recommending that Governor Reynolds issue a statewide mask mandate.
Iowa Workforce Development Reports Rise in Initial Unemployment Claims
(Des Moines, IA) — Iowa Workforce Development is reporting an uptick in first-time unemployment claims. The five-thousand-576 initial jobless claims filed between November 1st and 7th was increase of 967 from the previous week. I-W-D says 35-thousand-660 continuing unemployment claims were filed
last week – which is a decrease of more than 13-hundred from two weeks ago.
November through February usually see the most claims due to seasonal layoffs in construction, agriculture and landscaping. Officials say nearly 45 percent of the first-time claims in Iowa were not COVID-related, but economists say pandemic layoffs remain elevated.
Grassley Says Trump Acting Within Law Questioning Vote Outcome
(Undated) — U-S Senator Chuck Grassley says he has no complaints about the actions fellow Republican President Donald Trump is taking since the election. The president refuses to cooperate with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team and is blocking Biden from getting national security briefings. Grassley notes how Trump has filed multiple legal challenges in multiple states, claiming widespread voter fraud. The Iowa Republican said, “President Trump is well within his rights to ask the courts to review certain election disputes just as candidates have done before.” Biden leads the popular vote by more than five-million votes and has a 279-to-217 lead in the Electoral College vote. Grassley recalls how he was “sitting on pins and needles” in December of 2000 until Democrat Al Gore conceded to Republican George W. Bush after weeks of legal wrangling.
