South Iowa News

As COVID-19 continues to remain prevalent across the state, more frequent updates to Iowa's COVID-19 dashboard will be available to residents online. 

The dashboard, previously updated once a week, will now be updated three times a week and will now include vaccination numbers for hospitalized patients, Ames Tribune reported. 

Still, some question Gov. Kim Reynolds' delayed response in acknowledging the severity of the delta variant's impact across the state. 

"About two months late to the party, Iowa Governor Kim 'CovidKim' Reynolds is finally starting to acknowledge that we have a fornicating problem in this state as the delta variant explodes across Iowa," Jesse Green wrote in a post for the Palmer Report. "So now CovidKim is trying to talk her Branch Trumpvidian base into taking vaccines. (Yeah, good luck with that). Along with saying we have a problem, and that Iowa’s government was going back to more frequent reporting of COVID data."

In a Sept. 2 news conference, Reynolds confirmed that more than 99% of all COVID-19 cases in Iowa came from the delta variant, KCCI reported.

Reynolds' said that 79% of all hospitalizations came from unvaccinated residents, citing those who have chosen not to be vaccinated as the main cause of virus spread in the state, KCCI reported.

As of Sept. 9, 64.4% of those 18 years or older are currently vaccinated,  according to the state's dashboard. The state also had 554 COVID-19 patients in the hospital and 30 deaths over the past seven days.