About 80 COVID-19 cases have been added in the last week in Guthrie County with their 14-day average positivity rate at 20.1%, prompting health officials to hope Governor Kim Reynolds’ new public health disaster emergency proclamation will have an effect on slowing case rates.
The proclamation in effect through November 30th requires those over two years old to wear face masks during indoor gatherings of more than 25 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people. The proclamation also includes that groups are limited to eight people at social, community, recreational, or leisure gatherings and at restaurants and bars, only two spectators are permitted for each youth athlete at sporting events, and masks are mandated at personal service establishments like salons and barbershops.
As Guthrie and Adair counties each have about 200 cases that have not yet recovered, Guthrie County Public Health Director Jotham Arber hopes the public will take this proclamation seriously, “Unfortunately, in a lot of circumstances before the Governor’s proclamation here we just weren’t seeing the kind of masking that we would have liked to have been seeing, and so with the hospitalization rates up in Des Moines and throughout Iowa in our bigger metro areas there needed to be something that happened. I can’t really comment on how effective this will be yet, she didn’t really go as far as we might have thought she would with the closure of certain things but I think that this is a good step towards helping us get some of this under control.”
Arber adds that if the community spread of COVID-19 continues at its current rate it will further create a hole in the staffing of local health providers and other essential services, as he notes that the public health department, Guthrie County Hospital, and the Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office have all recently seen staff shortages because of COVID-19. You can hear more from Arber during the first part of a two-part Let’s Talk Guthrie County program on air today and at raccoonvalleyradio.com.