Rising Henry County COVID cases trigger concern

The rapidly rising number of COVID-19 cases in Henry County is concerning county health officials.

Public Health Director Shelley Van Dorin told the Board of Supervisors Thursday that, after weeks of seeing minimal positive tests, the daily numbers are steadily climbing.

“We had eight over the weekend — four Saturday and four Sunday — seven Monday, four Tuesday, six Wednesday and eight today,” Van Dorin said.

“The delta variant is very prominent and very contagious,” Van Dorin said, adding that the current wave of infections is hitting people under 40 the hardest. “Hospitalization rates for people under 40 are a lot higher than before.

“It used to be for people over 50, but many of them are immunized now.”

With the Test Iowa COVID testing sites having closed in mid-July, county health departments and medical providers have been tasked with conducting tests.

“We are our own test site now,” Van Dorin said.

Anyone wanting a test can contact the health department to set up a time to pick up a self-test.

Van Dorin said those are spit tests, where the subject spits into a vial, seals it and sends it off to a lab.

“They can usually get their results in about 72 hours,” she said.

They slao have restarted contact tracing efforts.

“We were not contact tracing for a while,” Van Dorin said. “We’ve starting doing that again

She urged people to help encourage anyone who is not vaccinated to get the shot.

Supervisor Greg Moeller asked if the department was considering restarting COVID vaccination clinics.

“There’s not enough interest,” Van Dorin replied.

She said, though, that there has been an uptick in the number of people seeking vaccinations.

“We’re having more people come into our office for a vaccine,” she said.

Van Dorin said that they are allowing anyone wishing to get a vaccine to come in during regular business hours, 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

“We only have Moderna and (Johnson & Johnson), so we can only give vaccines to people 18 and older,” she said. “Hy-Vee has Pfizer, so they can do people 12 and up.”