Iowa’s COVID-19 hospitalization rate reached another high mark with 718 patients on Monday. Of the 718, 156 people were in intensive care units and 57 people were on ventilators.

Washington County Public Health Director Danielle Pettit-Majewski discussed the hospitalization situation at Monday’s Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting, “I think it’s important to note that numbers that we have for beds we also need to think about staffing capacity, and so that’s also another factor for people to consider. We did have an additional death this past weekend, so we are now up to 12. Also one thing too, I just want to say about hospitalizations, because we have seen those continue to increase, not only in Region 5 but across the state as well, hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators, to remind you all. And we have seen an increasingly large uptick in cases. It’s not been unusual for us to get between 15 and 20 a day now, and that used to be a really rare occurrence. And now that’s just a Monday or a Tuesday, and so we will likely see these numbers continue to increase, especially as the weather turns colder.”

In Region 5, the 17-county area that includes all of southeast Iowa, there were 467 inpatient beds available on Monday and 60 ICU beds according to the Iowa Department of Public Health.

As of Monday, Washington County has had 751 confirmed cases of the virus, 12 deaths, and 519 people have recovered. Washington County’s 14-day positivity rate was 10.1% on Monday. The highest rate in southeast Iowa was 17.4% in Henry County.

People are encouraged to prevent the spread of the virus by washing your hands frequently with soap and water, practice social distancing, wear a mask in public when social distancing isn’t possible, and stay home when you’re ill.