IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Iowa has rebuilt its stockpile of personal protective equipment after a dire shortage that prompted the state to buy replenishments from some unusual sources. Records show Iowa’s executive branch has signed $45 million worth of emergency purchase orders for isolation gowns, masks, face shields, goggles and other equipment from mid-March through April.

That includes $7.2 million in contracts for gowns and goggles with a Des Moines business that has never previously sold either and is known for making Republican campaign signs. The deals include 590,000 masks that were purchased directly from China and to be flown to an Ankeny warehouse.

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — A California farm animal sanctuary is spending a small fortune to send two cargo planes to north-central Iowa to rescue 1,000 chickens from an egg farm. Animal Place workers loaded the planes Saturday morning at the Fort Dodge, Iowa, airport with more than 60 crates of the hens to fly back to the group’s sanctuary near Grass Valley in northern California.

The organizations’ director, Kim Sturla, said Friday that the hens came from a nearby egg farm that is going out of business. The farm had planned to simply kill the chickens, but agreed this week instead to give them to the California rescue, which will in turn rehabilitate the hens and adopt them out to people throughout California.

The Iowa Department of Public Health, today (Saturday) released the latest data on COVID-19 in the state. Officials say there are 279 new positive cases and 10 newly reported deaths. That brings the statewide total to 14,328 positive cases and 346 deaths.

IDPH reported 96,300 Iowans have been tested for the virus, while 6,927 have recovered. There are currently 387 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, with 128 listed in intensive care and 83 patients on ventilators. There were 31 patients admitted in the last 24 hours.

IDPH reported 3,480 inpatient beds available, with 449 ICU beds available and 712 ventilators available. Iowa’s hospitalization numbers remain flat or trending downward for more than a week. There are 36 outbreaks reported in Iowa’s long-term care facilities, up one from Friday’s total.

The Iowa Department of Public Health releases new COVID-19 statistics each day on this website.

The Audubon School Board will hold a session via ZOOM conferencing, 7-p.m. Monday, from their Board Room at the High School. Members of the public may attend the meeting in-person, but seating will be limited to 10 participants, with preference going to Board members and others necessary to conduct the meeting. Members of the public are encourage to request the ZOOM link by e-mail from Superintendent Eric Trager, at etrager@audubon.k12.ia.us. The link will be sent to you Monday morning.

On their tentative agenda, the Audubon School Board is expected to take action on:

• Approval of: SU “Breakdown” Insurance for FY21; Milk bids and student fees; the Audit report; List of graduates; and the Sale of a house in Washington State.

The Board will also act approving Bonding Regulations in Board Policy, to include: Post Issuance Compliance for Bond Sale, and, a Bond Disclosure Regulation. Additional action covers approval of a Resolution authorizing an Official Statement for the Bond Sale, setting the date/time for June Special meetings regarding the approval on Bond Sale (June 2nd) and Approval of Year-End Bills (June 30), and approval of concrete replacement by the South Doors.

With regard to Personnel matters, the Audubon School Board will act on a Social Studies/At-Risk Teacher and, Spanish Teacher positions.  In other business, Superintendent Trager will discuss Return to Learn; the CARES Act Fund (as part of the Financial Report), a Transportation report, and an update on Project 1 Building specs. The Board may then move into a closed session per Iowa Code, with regard to a personnel matter.

(Radio Iowa) — It’s unknown if people across the state have been drinking more alcohol as they’ve had to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic — but it is clear the shut down of restaurants and bars had some impacts on alcohol sales. Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division spokesman, Tyler Ackerson, says they saw the change as soon as the pandemic shutdowns started. “In March we had a 26% increase in sales and in April we had a more modest two percent increase in sales over those same months last year,” according to Ackerson.” We think a lot of that increase in March is attributable to changes in consumer purchasing behavior.”

(Image from IABD website)

He says the order closing restaurants and bars led to a quick shift. “We think at that time Iowans shifted the purchasing to liquor by the bottle for at-home consumption. …We saw increased grocery spending during that time, we also saw increased purchase of home goods. So as Iowans were purchasing more of those types of items — we think that liquor was among those purchases as well.” The IABD sells alcohol to the liquor stores and other retailers who then sell it to consumers — so the agency doesn’t have a direct way to track exactly how and what is being purchased. Ackerson says they can track some inventory trends. He says from March 16th through April 1st, there was an 82% increase in the sale of their larger size bottles of liquor and the sales of the standard size bottles increase by 51%.

Ackerson says the loss of restaurant and bar sales was pretty evident as well. “Our largest independently-owned liquor stores have reduced their purchases from ABD by 44% since mid-March. Many of these independent liquor stores rely on selling to bars and restaurants — and with these COVID-19 related closures — they’ve seen that portion of their business significantly decline.” The state later allowed restaurants and bars to sell alcohol to go to help them with the loss of business. “The same week that they were allowed to do that –we saw our case sales of 50 milliliter small bottles increase 60 percent over that same week in 2019,” Ackerson says. “We think that coincides with a lot of restaurants beginning to create to-go cocktail kits. These would be the kits that had the little 50 millimeter-sized bottles and then a non-alcoholic mixer in it.”

Ackerson says it is hard to say that Iowans were using more alcohol as they were confined to their homes with no bars and restaurants to visit. “We can’t be certain our sales figures demonstrate an increase in personal consumption,” he says. “Iowans may have simply changed where they are continuing to enjoy their favorite spirit products. They may have been usually enjoying those at a bar or a restaurant, but with the closures, perhaps they are just switching to consuming those at home.”

Ackerson says they will be watching to see what happens with sales trends as restaurants open back up for inside sales, and when bars are once again allowed to reopen.

(Radio Iowa) – A north-central Iowa state representative is asking legislative leaders to review the performance of the Test Iowa program. The state entered into a no-bid, 26-million dollar contract with Nomi Health of Utah to provide expanded testing for the state. Mason City Democrat Sharon Steckman is asking that the legislature’s Government Oversight Committee be convened to look into the testing program. “The week of May 11th, Test Iowa processed 3,100 tests for the entire week,” she says. “We were promised 3,000 a day, and it’s been three weeks, and we’re not even getting close to that goal.”

Steckman wonders who Test Iowa is answering to and why there isn’t oversight when we’ve seen large outbreaks of COVID-19 at some of the state’s meatpacking plants.“Especially since the White House said Des Moines was one of ten hotspots in the nation for COVID-19, and Iowa’s ranked 14th highest of 50 states,” she says. “Environmental Working Group came out with a study they published yesterday that Iowa meatpacking plants rank number one in the nation for infections, and if you’re a county that has one near you, your rate for COVID is almost twice that of what the national average is.”

Governor Reynolds announced on Thursday that the State Hygienic Lab had validated the machines used for the Test Iowa program and they expect more tests will be processed quickly and results will be delivered on a more timely basis. Steckman says despite that, more oversight needs to take place. “It’s $26 million of taxpayers money. Whether it’s federal or state, someone should be watching over that money,” she says. “I know when they came to Black Hawk County, they used personnel in Black Hawk County, the National Guard also was helping, but they had to pull folks away, nurses and that, away from other things to implement the program. I just think it needs more scrutiny. Any time you have that much money, there’s always the chance for things to not go like you’d like them to.”

Steckman made the oversight request during Thursday’s meeting of the Legislative Council. House Speaker Pat Grassley said he would not rule out the request but he had not had any conversations about it with the chair of the oversight committee.