Since October 1st, Washington County has added 164 confirmed cases of COVID-19. As of Tuesday, Washington County has had 665 total cases, 11 deaths, and 485 people have recovered for a local recovery rate of almost 73%. Iowa’s COVID-19 hospitalization rate has been increasing and as of Tuesday there were 564 people hospitalized with 128 in intensive care and 46 people on ventilators.

Washington County Public Health Director Danielle Pettit-Majewski provided a local COVID-19 update at Tuesday’s Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting. Supervisor Richard Young asked if there has been an increase in the number of people being tested and Pettit-Majewski answered, “When you look at our percent positivity rate, that’s what shows what we’re doing. So, I think for the state of Iowa yesterday they said it was over 25%, so that’s one out of every four people whose being tested is testing positive. So, it’s not necessarily that we’re doing more testing, if you look at the number of tests being done those remain pretty consistent. But we are seeing a big increase in our case counts and we are seeing more people getting sick. Lots of cases that we’re seeing from some large events and then a lot of, of course you know, small family gatherings where it impacts, you know, multiple households. So, that’s really what we’re seeing consistently in our case investigations.”

She encourages people to continue to take steps to protect themselves and those around them, “We do continue to see increased hospitalizations across the state. So I would just remind everybody, especially as the weather gets colder, you know it’s harder to social distance and do more things outside with the changing weather, so just to continue to be cautious – wearing your mask, wash your hands, all of those good things.”

Iowa has had a total of 117,635 cases with 1,658 deaths and 89,443 people have recovered. Iowa’s 14-day positivity rate was 12.5%. Washington County’s 14-day positivity rate was 10.1%.