BREAKING NEWS: Iowa’s covid numbers for infection, deaths and hospitalizations remained in the danger zone again this week, with the omicron variant spreading to 10 Iowa counties, as shutdowns increase nationwide, including in neighboring Illinois. Omicron has now been identified in over three dozen patients in ten Iowa counties, including Black Hawk, Des Moines, Dubuque, Franklin, Jefferson, Johnson, Linn, Polk, Scott and Story counties. The more virulent variant is spiking along with new cases of previous variants, as Iowa Department of Public Health has reported 9,506 positive tests per... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: The omicron covid variant has begun ripping through Iowa, with the number of confirmed cases leaping across seven counties, as for the third week in a row covid numbers have soared across the state, prompting some to wonder if new restrictions including mask mandates and remote learning for schools may be on the way. Omicron has now infected people in Black Hawk, Jefferson, Johnson, Linn, Polk, Scott and Story counties, according to the latest numbers from the Iowa Department of Public Health. The total number of confirmed infections has gone from one to almost two dozen in a little... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: For the third week in a row, covid-19 hospitalizations in Iowa have hit their highest numbers for the year, as the state’s positivity rate roars upward and deaths continue to rise. According to the latest numbers from the Iowa Department of Public Health, there are 823 patients in hospitals with covid, including 173 in intensive care and 103 on ventilators. There were 10,476 new reported COVID-19 cases over the past week, an average of 1,497 per day, and the state’s 14-day positivity rate is 11.3 percent. As in neighboring Illinois, the numbers are largely driven by the... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Iowa covid-19 cases are skyrocketing, hitting their highest numbers in over a year, prompting some to call for a return to restrictions including a statewide mask mandate. According to the website coronavirus.iowa.gov, there were 9,362 new COVID-19 cases over the past week, an average of 1,337 new cases per day, bringing the state’s total number of cases to 528,221. Over the last 24 hours, there were 125 patients hospitalized in Iowa, for a statewide total of 721 (up from 623 last week), and 172 are in the ICU (up from 146 last week), and 67 are on ventilators (up from 57 last... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Iowa covid-19 numbers continue to soar, with the Iowa Department of Public Health reporting 9,132 new COVID-19 cases in the past week, an average of 1,304 per day, prompting some to call for new mask mandates in schools and statewide. There were 102 deaths reported last week as well, bringing the state’s total to 7,268 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic. In addition, hospitalizations due to covid also continued to increase, rising to 544, including 123 patients in intensive care and 57 on ventilators. Children under 18 make up over 20 percent of the positive case... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Covid-19 numbers are dropping in Rock Island County, according to data released by the Rock Island County health department. As previously reported earlier on QuadCities.com, numbers across Illinois have been dropping as the number of vaccinated people above age 16 in the state has gone over 50 percent. Today, the Rock Island County health department reported 16 new cases of COVID-19 today, bringing the total to 14,487. Currently, 26 patients are hospitalized in the county with the virus. The average age of today’s cases is 32. The new cases are: • 2 women in her 40s •... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Covid numbers for Illinois Region 2, which includes the Illinois Quad-Cities, continue to worsen, bringing our area ominously close to potential mitigations, according to data released over the weekend. As earlier reported on QuadCities.com, covid-19 numbers in Illinois Region 2, which includes the Quad-Cities area, have been surging over the past two weeks, putting the area at risk for mitigations and a shutdown of some activities. Region 2 has seen a rise in covid cases for more than seven days, which would put it in danger of having some mitigations reinstated; it has seen three... Read More

There’s an old saying that you shouldn’t blame the messenger when you receive bad news. However, that saying is reliant on the messenger being a neutral party. When the messenger is merely the one bringing you the message, it’s without blame. For example, when we at QuadCities.com, give you a story featuring covid statistics, we’re passing along information we’ve gleaned from an official source. We also attribute that source, so that you know where we got that information. We have no part in creating that information. We do not make up the statistics. We do the duty of what the media... Read More

When you allow people with less intelligence and common sense to think for you and inform your decisions, the results are seldom good. And that’s why Iowans — and those traveling through Iowa in the Quad-Cities and throughout the state — need to ignore the abysmal advice of short-sighted Governor Kim Reynolds and trust scientists and their own common sense and good judgement in regard to covid. Over 5,000 people have died in Iowa since the pandemic began, 60 percent of those in the last three months, according to the Iowa Department of Health. Sixty percent. Over the last three... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: In the wake of Governor Kim Reynolds’ decision on Friday to eliminate any state requirements to wear masks and limit public gatherings to stop the deadly spread of covid-19, new numbers were released today showing Iowa as one of the least safe states in the U.S. in regard to covid-19. The website WalletHub, aggregating data from across all 50 states, showed Iowa as last in the country in vaccination rate, next-to-last in terms of death rate, and with an overall rank of the seventh worst state in the U.S. in regard to covid safety for visitors and residents. Given we live in... Read More