Will Iowa's Post-Quarantine Normal be a Lasting New Normal?
Today is the day that 77 of 99 counties in Iowa were allowed to reopen businesses at 50 percent. Today in the state of Iowa, there were 739 additional cases of COVID-19 and eight more deaths from the coronavirus, as reported by The Daily Iowan. That’s an additional 437 cases than yesterday’s report, and an additional 272 cases than reported numbers from the day before yesterday. Total positive cases of COVID-19 to date in the state of Iowa are 7,884. Does anybody else find it alarming that 2,365 of the total number of cases in Iowa have been reported as new cases since Monday? That’s five days amounting to nearly 30 percent of the total positive cases in Iowa since the first reported case in early March. Deaths related to the coronavirus have also increased by 30 percent since Monday, with 52 of the 170 total deaths being reported within the past five days.
How do these numbers add up to reasoning that it’s safe to initiate a return to our pre-COVID-19 normal? Restrictions officially established by the governor were already minimal compared to other states. She left it up to citizens to use their best judgement to follow the CDC guidelines and maintain social distancing. Has that worked for us? I don’t think so! As of Monday, April 27th, the date when it was reported that Iowa would allow businesses to partially reopen, positive COVID-19 testing was known to be spreading faster than in other states.[i] Let’s just think about that for a minute. Shouldn’t the fact that we, in the state of Iowa, haven’t reached a peak in cases yet be a warning to strengthen forms of mitigation, rather than back off on efforts to reduce the spread of this highly contagious disease?
On top of all this, UI researchers fear that there may be a second surge of COVID-19 cases as a result of opening businesses too quickly.[ii] This report was sent to the Iowa Department of Public Health a week before Governor Reynolds officially announced the partial reopening of businesses in the state. Her reasoning to ignore this report and strategically begin a return to normal was because of the impact shutdowns have had on the economy. I understand that this is difficult, even devastating to some businesses as well as to employees who have to do without pay or reduced pay during the shutdown periods. But if there is a second wave of cases, as warned by the University of Iowa Researchers, wouldn’t that be even more devastating than if they had just waited out the first wave to begin with?
I hope residents living in Iowa will take notice of these facts and continue with social distancing practices a little while longer. And if they haven’t been adhering to recommendations by the CDC, I hope they will begin to. If people don’t take this seriously, I fear that predictions of a second wave of the coronavirus presented to the Iowa Department of Public Health more than a week ago will become a reality. Stay home. Stay safe. Do your part to stop the spread of his virus so that when we do return to a post-quarantine normal, it will be a lasting new normal.
[i] Reported by The Daily Iowan based on a tweet from Lyz Lenz, a columnist with The Gazette.
[ii] Reported by The Daily Iowan April 28, 2020.
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