Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CDT
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (AP) — A union leader is complaining that a large Iowa nursing home for veterans is forcing some employees to work after they were exposed to a colleague who tested positive for coronavirus. AFSCME Council 61 President Danny Homan said the situation at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown is potentially putting employees and its 550 residents at risk of infection. Pat Garrett, a spokesman for Gov. Kim Reynolds, said that three employees at the home tested positive in late March, were sent home and are recovering. The home says it has tested 24 residents for COVID-19 so far and all have been negative.
MOLINE, Ill. (AP) — Ben Rogers, a long-time activist with the Boy Scouts of America in Illinois and Iowa, has died from complications resulting from COVID-19. Austin Mitchell of the Boy Scouts said the 67-year-old Rogers of Moline, Illinois died Tuesday at a Rock Island hospital after battling coronavirus for more than a month. An obituary posted by a Moline funeral home noted Rogers was active for 40 years in all levels of scouting, including as the head cook at Loud Thunder Scout Reservation in western Illinois. Rogers is survived by his wife and several children.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — While most governors have imposed stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus, leaders of a handful of states have rejected such action. Nine Republican governors have refused to mandate that people stay at home. Local leaders have taken action in some of those states. North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas are the only states where no one is under a stay-at-home order. The lack of action from those governors has frustrated health experts and left some residents puzzled. An infectious disease expert at the University of California-Berkeley says the longer officials wait, the harder it is for such orders to have a substantial impact on the virus’ spread.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is defending her use of a tool to help guide the state’s response to the outbreak that critics have called arbitrary and unscientific. The matrix developed by the Iowa Department of Public Health looks at four data points in six regions of the state. If any one region hits 10 on a 12-point scale, the matrix calls for the potential implementation of a shelter-in-place order. Critics include a top infectious disease researcher and other medical experts. They argue that the data points are backward-looking rather than preventive because they trigger stricter interventions only after more people are infected and hospitalized.