These are not warning signs. They are bright-red, blaring alarms.
We’re headed for another COVID-19 wave this winter in Iowa, and in many parts of the country, unless things get turned around soon. And that sure is a difficult thing to justify with the availability of vaccines.
COVID-related hospitalizations in Iowa surged past 700 this week, according to state public health data. That is, shockingly, the highest number of COVID hospitalizations since almost exactly one year ago, when we were just coming down from the pandemic’s most deadly surge.
Between then and now, hospitalizations plummeted as the vaccine became more available and people were able to more often get outside, where the virus does not spread as well. By July, the number of COVID hospitalizations statewide was no more than a few dozen.
Over the past three months, however, that number has steadily climbed again, despite the widespread availability of three COVID-19 vaccines, all of which have proven remarkably effective at keeping people out of the hospitals — even among the vaccinated who experience breakthrough cases.
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In other words, there’s really no reason that hospitalization number should be shooting up like it is.
But it is. And hospitals and health care workers are getting uneasy again.
The silver lining is that COVID-related deaths are not surging in the same way hospitalizations are. Obviously that is fantastic news, and again likely a credit to the vaccines. But preventing death is not the vaccines’ only benefit. They also, as previously stated, excel at keeping people out of the hospital.
When COVID patients start packing the hospitals, like they are starting to once again, other health care services suffer. It’s not just the COVID patients that are put in harm’s way; it’s all the other people who need health care and don’t get it fast enough because the hospitals are full of COVID patients. That can lead to serious illness or even deaths that do not show up in the COVID data, but are for all intents and purposes COVID-related.
Every serious public health official and infectious disease expert continues to say the same thing: The best way to limit COVID’s spread and destruction is to get vaccinated.
That’s not happening fast enough in Iowa. Only 61% of Iowans 5 years and older — those who are eligible for the vaccines — are fully vaccinated, according to federal data. That’s right down the middle, 25th among U.S. states and Washington, D.C. Even the 12-and-up population, which has been eligible for nearly a year, only made it to 67%.
The entire state is experiencing the highest level of COVID transmission, according to federal data, and only 3 out of 5 Iowans are vaccinated against the virus that continues to rage.
I’ll wager a paycheck that you’re sick and tired of hearing about COVID. It doesn’t matter whether you were first in line to get the vaccine or have been a skeptic since Day 1 of the pandemic: COVID fatigue unites us all.
Fortunately, there is a solution: vaccination. Add a booster shot and some thoughtful mask-wearing on the side, and you have a recipe for a much healthier and safer, and less deadly winter.
Unfortunately, at the rate Iowans are getting vaccinated, we may be headed in the other direction. The numbers do not lie. But they do scare; at least, they should.
— Erin Murphy covers Iowa politics and government for Lee Enterprises. His email address is erin.murphy@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter at @ErinDMurphy.