Finally, some good COVID news

This is not the time to let our guard down, Iowa leaders and Public Health officials say.
Yes, the state’s COVID-19 stats — after soaring for weeks — are finally coming down. That’s the good news.
But just ask Chickasaw County Public Health Administrator Lisa Welter, and she’ll tell you now is not the time to take off those masks and go to crowded events.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” she said last week, “and I think we’re all naturally worried about what’s going to happen over the [Thanksgiving] holiday weekend. I know I’ve said this over and over, but we need to socially distance, and we need to keep masking up.”
Public health officials and medical experts are reminding residents that Chickasaw County still remains a relative hot spot for the Coronavirus, even as its 14-day positivity rate, after weeks of increasing, finally began dropping last week.
The positivity rate, which is used to determine if schools can apply to go to full-time distance learning, reached a high of 29.4 percent on Nov. 20 and slowly fell to 25.7 percent as of Sunday. Still, that was the fifth highest rate in the state.
School districts can request going to distance learning if the 14-day positivity rate is higher than 20 percent, but New Hampton and Turkey Valley Superintendent Jay Jurrens has resisted making that move — pointing out that the recent spike in cases has not been because of “school spread.”
— For more on this story, see the Dec. 1 Tribune