Iowa sets 2021 records in new reported COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations

Tim Webber and Nick Coltrain, Des Moines Register
·6 min read

A crush of COVID-19 patients and burned out staff have Des Moines hospitals canceling some elective appointments, a doctor with UnityPoint Health said Wednesday, as the state reported a new 2021 record of people hospitalized with the disease.

"We've been in crisis mode since this started," pediatric critical care specialist Tracy L. Ekhardt said in an interview. "Especially since this last wave of delta hit, starting in about August, our whole city has been in this crisis mode. We've kind of pulled out all of the stops, and we're working at capacity. All of us are already limiting outpatient procedures and surgeries, so there's not a lot of flex in the system left."

The state reported 777 COVID-19 patients in Iowa's hospitals on Wednesday, a week after reporting a then-record 721 patients hospitalized with the disease at the same time.

Of those currently hospitalized, 185 are in intensive care units and 98 are on ventilators. More than 84% of COVID-19 patients requiring intensive care in Iowa are not fully vaccinated against the disease.

"Those that are sick, and especially in our ICUS, are our unvaccinated patients and it's heartbreaking," Ekhardt said. "I'm in pediatrics and I'm seeing more and more patients in my ICU. I have two babies on ventilators (due to COVID-19) right now. This far into it, to continue to see this many really sick patients is devastating."

The state reported 13,039 new COVID-19 cases in the past week, an average of 1,863 per day — the most in a seven-day period in 2021. Even more hospitalizations are sure to follow as those new cases progress.

While last week's decline in cases may have been attributable to a decrease in testing around the Thanksgiving holiday, there was not an unusually large influx in testing this week; the number of new tests was roughly similar to the testing rates of September and October. The statewide 14-day positivity rate increased again, from 11.2% to 12%.

More: Iowa stops tracking home county of COVID hospital patients

More Iowans are fully vaccinated. But only 6% of kids 5 to 11 are

The percentage of Iowans who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 increased by nearly a full percentage point, to 54.4%, an unusually large increase that was potentially due either to data reporting catching up from the Thanksgiving holiday or the addition of reporting of fully vaccinated children between the ages of 5 and 11, who became eligible for vaccination last month.

The state reported 6% of the about 284,000 children ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated. Young children became eligible for the Pfizer vaccine in early November. It requires two doses, delivered three weeks apart, to reach full efficacy. The state is not reporting how many children have just one dose.

Ekhardt said she still sees a lot of fear around the vaccine, especially for younger patients. The free vaccine is safe and effective, she said, and shared her personal experience to back it up. She's lost track of the number children with COVID-19 she's treated, including teens who were eligible last spring.

The number of immunized children she's treated: Zero.

Overall, hospitals are seeing younger patients needing care due to COVID-19, she said, specifying that it's a lot of otherwise healthy people in their 20s and 30s.

"If they are able to recover, it is a very long road for them," Ekhardt said. "They are sick for months to over a year now. Talking with my adult ICU physicians and pulmonologists, the 20- and 30-year-olds, if they get admitted to the ICU and survive, they're sick for a long time and it's a very long recovery."

Polk County Health Department spokesperson Nola Aigner Davis said an initial bottleneck of more people seeking vaccines for children than were available has cleared, and the county has open slots for children and adults. Most pharmacies, including those in grocery stores, are also offering the free vaccine for children and adults, including booster shots.

"This isn't about you and me," Aigner Davis said, encouraging Iowans to get vaccinated and noting Polk County's cases are rising. "It's about everyone you love and you care about. You may not think you need to be vaccinated, but you know someone who maybe is immunocompromised, maybe is elderly and has a waning immune system, you know someone under the age of 5 you love and care about. You get vaccinated for them. The way we do this is together. We have to keep doing that, or otherwise this will never stop."

More than 600,000 Iowas have been boosted

The state is now reporting booster doses on its public-facing vaccine dashboard. More than 600,000 Iowans have received a booster dose. That's nearly 20% of the state's population — or nearly 35% of those who are already fully vaccinated.

The update comes as Pfizer said a booster dose of its vaccine may protect against the new omicron variant of COVID-19, which has been reported in the U.S. but not yet in Iowa.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting a similar number of booster doses in Iowa. The CDC's national data shows that only Minnesota and Vermont have administered booster doses to a larger percentage of their fully vaccinated population.

More: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds gets a J&J COVID vaccine booster shot, she says in video message

COVID-19 deaths also increased this week. Another 105 COVID-19 deaths were reported in Wednesday's update, some of which occurred as far back as mid-October. That brings Iowa's pandemic death toll to 7,550.

COVID-19 denialism and skepticism is continuing to plague people and health care workers, Ekhardt said. Families accusing health care providers — typically seen as teammates working for their loved ones in pre-pandemic times — of making up the disease, or actively harming their loved ones, takes a particularly heavy emotional toll, she said.

"Even people who get admitted with severe COVID and are very sick, they still are convinced vaccines don't work, masks don't work," she said. "Even if they have one, two, or three family members die of COVID, there's a good section of the population that still says nope, it's not the vaccines, those still won't help. At some point we really don't know what to say. "

Read more on COVID-19 in Iowa:

The latest COVID-19 numbers in Iowa

The latest data, as of 11 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 8, compared to the previous Wednesday.

  • Confirmed cases: 542,422, an increase of 13,039

  • Deaths: 7,550, an increase of 105

  • Total tested: 2,222,001

  • Total recovered: 495,354

  • Statewide 14-day positivity rate: 12.0%

How many people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in Iowa?

  • Hospitalizations: 777, up from 721 one week ago

  • Patients in ICU: 185, up from 172

  • Patients on ventilators: 98, up from 91

How many people in Polk and Dallas counties are vaccinated?

In Polk County, 298,361 residents (61%) are fully vaccinated, an increase of 6,462 (1.3 percentage points) since last week.

In Dallas County, 56,898 residents (61%) are fully vaccinated, an increase of 1,590 (1.7 percentage points).

The five counties in Iowa with the highest percentage of their population fully vaccinated as of Dec. 8 are Johnson (65%), Buena Vista (63%), Dallas (61%), Polk (61%) and Linn (61%) counties.

For a county-by-county look at the vaccination rollout, see our COVID-19 vaccine tracker, which is updated weekly.

Tim Webber is a data visualization specialist for the Register. Reach him at twebber@registermedia.com, 515-284-8532, and on Twitter at @HelloTimWebber.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: New COVID=19 cases, hospitalizations hit 2021 high in Iowa