Today’s NewsStand

Today’s NewsStand

By Iowa Hospital Association|
|May 10, 2021

Iowa news

Only two counties accept entire COVID-19 vaccine allocation for this week

State health officials say Monona and Emmett are the only Iowa counties to accept their full allocation of COVID-19 vaccine doses for this week. According to data released Friday, 40 counties accepted part of their allocation, and 57 counties declined all new doses. State officials say because of the decrease in demand, they have accepted just 19,870 doses of their 68,950 dose federal allocation for this week. That’s less than a third of it. (Iowa Public Radio)

Report: Iowa cut public health funding before COVID-19 pandemic

A new report has found Iowa cut its public health funding just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The annual report by the nonprofit Trust For America’s Health found that Iowa was one of seven states that decreased its state funding for public health in 2019. It fell by 3% from the previous year. (Iowa Public Radio)

Iowa health professionals work to dispel vaccine rumors

Iowa physicians are using a different method to reach those who haven’t gotten their COVID-19 vaccine yet or are choosing not to. Health professionals dispelling vaccine rumors for those people say the vaccines do not contain unsafe substances. There is not an ulterior motive to get people vaccinated, and, no, the pandemic is not a cover for a plan to implant trackable microchips. (KCCI)

 

National news

After year with virtually no flu, scientists worry the next season could be a bad one

More than a year after the pandemic started, COVID-19 is still ravaging parts of the world, but now scientists are warning that another virus could be a serious threat in the coming months: influenza. This season, the flu virtually disappeared, with less than 2,000 lab-confirmed cases in the US to date, according to the CDC. In a typical flu season, the US could see more than 200,000 lab-confirmed cases by this time of year, a tiny fraction of the true number of cases, estimated to range from 9 million to 45 million annually. (NBC News)

CDC updates guidance about how COVID-19 spreads

The CDC updated its guidance on COVID-19 transmission, underscoring that the virus spreads through small respiratory droplets and particles in the air. The new guidance explicitly states that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be inhaled even when you are more than six feet away from an infected person. The CDC previously said most infections were contracted through “close contact, not airborne transmission.” The agency also said transmission can occur through contact with contaminated surfaces or by touching the eyes, nose or mouth with hands that have the virus on them, though this mode of transmission is more uncommon. (Becker’s Hospital Review)

Vaccination against COVID-19 ‘does not mean immunity’ for people with organ transplants

For most people, COVID-19 vaccines promise a return to something akin to normal life. But for the hundreds of thousands of people in the US who have a transplanted organ, it’s a different story. New research published this week in the medical journal JAMA suggests many transplant recipients may not get protection from vaccination, even after two doses. (Iowa Public Radio)

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