The 7:07-a.m. News w/News Director Ric Hanson.

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(Iowa News Service) DES MOINES, Iowa — States like Iowa have lifted COVID-19 restrictions amid a gradual decline in case activity and promising news on vaccinations, but new survey results say most older residents want businesses to keep safety in mind as they welcome back customers. In a statewide survey from AARP Iowa, 95% of respondents age 50 and older said mask mandates make them feel somewhat or extremely safe. Brad Anderson, state director for AARP Iowa, said he hopes the business community takes that result very seriously.

“Masks are king in Iowa and older Iowans do expect shopkeepers, restaurants and anywhere indoors; grocery stores, to keep those mask mandates in place,” Anderson asserted. Respondents also indicated strong support for other safety measures, such as increasing outdoor dining rather than indoor. The Iowa Department of Public Health said more than 200,000 Iowans have now been fully vaccinated, and case averages have declined, as well as COVID hospitalizations.

Anderson noted older Iowans command a lot of spending power. He suggested it would be wise for businesses struggling to recover from shutdowns and restrictions to respond to the concerns of this age group, given how it’s been affected by the virus.  “This is a life-or-death issue for them, and it makes sense that, you know, there’s some hesitation to jump back into life as normal,” Anderson observed.

State health department data show Iowans age 50 and older make up 98% of COVID-related deaths, and nearly 70% of current hospitalizations. The statewide survey was conducted in January.

Red Oak Police report three separate arrests took place, Sunday. At around 6-p.m., 31-year old Mildred Helenora Douglas, of Red Oak, was arrested for Harassment in the 3rd Degree. She was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $300 bond. At approximately 6:45-p.m., 48-year-old Dale Eugene Longnecker, of Essex, was arrested at Broadway and Ohio Streets, for Driving Under Suspension. And, Red Oak Police arrested 29-year old Nicholas Gage McGhee, of Riverton, at around 8:30-p.m., following a traffic stop. He was found to be driving with a suspended license, and transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where bond was set at $491.25.

(Radio Iowa) – It was a year ago today (Monday) that Governor Kim Reynolds announced confirmation of the first cases of Covid in Iowa. The first cases were in Johnson County. Dr. Nicholas Mohr was working in the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics’ intensive care unit the night the first Covid patient was admitted to the hospital.  “We had a group of nurses and physicians who had been training and preparing for that to happen, but when our first patient came, obviously knew that it was starting and we really didn’t know what the next year was going to hold.”

The first death of an Iowan who’d contracted the virus was announced on March 24th. By early April of last year, one in 10 cases of Covid in Iowa were among nursing home residents or staff.  “When I think back over the last year, I think about what the preparation of those first few weeks looked like and just kind of the uncertainty because we had watched what happened in New York and what happened in Italy,” Dr. Mohr says, “and we had no idea what that trajectory was going to look like in Iowa.”

As of this weekend, state officials have confirmed five-thousand-five-hundred-58 Iowans have died after contracting Covid. By Sunday night, 860-thousand Iowans have had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. The speedy development of those vaccines as well as treatment options for new disease is a triumph of science and medicine, according to Mohr.  “The end is coming,” Mohr says. “We look forward to a time when we can see our friends and families again. We look forward to a time when we can do all the things that we did before Covid, but right now it’s still really important that we’re following all of the same precautions until we can get all of our communities vaccinated and until our friends and family can be safe.”

By early April of last year, one in 10 cases of Covid in Iowa were among nursing home residents or staff. As of Sunday, the state’s coronavirus website shows nursing home residents account for 39 percent of the Covid-related deaths in Iowa. Brent Willett is president of the Iowa Health Care Association, which represents the 436 nursing homes in Iowa. “More then 2400 people residing in nursing homes and around 35 staff members lost their life to Covid in the last year,” he says, “which is a completely unprecedented circumstance in the history of our sector and it’s probably fair to say there’s still a lot of shell shock out there.”

Everyone who lives or works in a nursing home who wanted to be vaccinated has gotten a shot now. Willett says conversations are underway about how to prepare for the next infectious disease outbreak. “For example, I think that we need to have a deep conversation about how we regulate and resource infection control preventionists in long-term care facilities,” Willett says. “It’s a critical, critical position. We have them now. We need more of them and we need to find a way to ensure that they can be more active and more proactive in planning for these kind of eventualities in the future.”

As of early this (Monday) morning, the state website tracking coronavirus activity indicated there were Covid outbreaks at 10 Iowa nursing homes. On the last day of November, 155 nursing homes had outbreaks.

Iowa House District 20 Republican Representative Ray Sorensen, from Greenfield, reports “Funnel week” came to an end on Friday, and” now we work towards second funnel in a couple of weeks. Debate was very limited, only a couple of non-cons on Wednesday, as we concentrated on getting our committee work done during funnel.”

In his weekly newsletter, Sorensen said “Funnel week is a self-imposed deadline for each session that means all bills must be voted out of their Senate and House committees and sent to each full chamber. Bills that don’t make it out of committee are essentially dead, meaning us legislators won’t have an opportunity to vote on them. There are ways, though, that bills can come back from the “dead”, in the form of amendments and in standing apropos, etc.

Education committee lasted for seven hours on Wednesday, and here are a couple highlights. First, after working on a bipartisan compromise for the last couple of weeks, I was able to pass the Seizure Safe Schools bill. This bill would require training in recognition of the signs of seizure disorders and at least one employee to be trained in administering seizure medications. There are 40 different types of seizures and 1 in 10 Americans will experience a seizure in their lifetime. This is a bill that has successfully passed in five other states and is running in 20 others.

The Governor’s Education bill, SF 159, was broken up into a few different bills. First, HSB 243, the students first scholarships, or “vouchers”, didn’t have the support to move out of committee.

Next, HSB 242 The Charter Schools bill, passed out of committee. It allows for the creation of a public charter school through one of two models, a school board or founding group. Both approaches use the same rigorous application process and are accountable to the state board of education, making sure they adhere to public school guidelines. These schools would not be able to “pick the cream of the crop”, it would be first come-first serve basis. It passed, but there is work to be done to make sure we improve the community support and local accountability pieces, if that isn’t addressed, it may not make it off the floor.

The other piece of the Governor’s bill, HSB 240, increases the teacher tax deduction from $250 to $500 and also increases the education tax credit from 25% of the first $1000 to 25% of the first $2000 spent on education related expenses like tuition and textbooks. The mandate for a single statewide student information system was removed from this bill.

Another high-profile education bill, preventing the 1619 Project from being taught in history class, failed to gain support. The bill was a specific attempt to stop it from being taught it history class (as it is littered with historical errors and inaccuracies), but not entirely, a teacher would’ve been able to teach it in a literature or reading class.

Some of the bills voted out of committee in Information Technology this past week include: HSB 232 – Which is a bill that would empower the ICN to directly bill an entity receiving services through an authorized user for an authorized use. This creates a more efficient billing and billing resolution process for the ICN. HSB 212 – Clarifies that blockchain and smart contract technologies may be used in the state of Iowa for transactional relationships.

We finally came to a compromise with the Governor’s office on the policy piece of her Broadband Grant Program bill, HSB 133. The bill redefines Targeted service areas into tiers and required a project minimum speed of 100/100 with increased grant match percentages from 75% on down. The issue was, at 100/100, which is only fiber and this point, that digging fiber to every rural home (even with a 75% match) was still not very feasible. So as a compromise, we dropped the upload speed down to 20 for some of the Tier 1 projects to open it up to other technologies in hopes of reaching every last Iowan in need of a reliable broadband connection. I think this change, paired with an aggressive appropriation, could catapult us to the forefront of, not only an entirely connected state, but from an economic development stance this makes rural and small town Iowa a viable place to live and work.

This week, the Iowa Department of Public Health announced a new website – Vaccinate.Iowa.gov – to provide additional resources to eligible Iowans seeking the COVID-19 vaccine. This website provides information about vaccine providers based on your zip code, vaccine priority populations and eligibility, resources for Iowans age 65 and older, and answers to frequently asked questions. Iowa continues to vaccinate at record rates with 723,262 doses already being administered as of Wednesday. To put this in context, over the last year, 364,892 Iowans have tested positive for COVID.

Whether you live in a city or in God’s Country in rural Iowa, your right to keep and bear arms is essential and we remain committed to protecting it. The 2nd Amendment Omnibus bill will improve public safety, eliminate needless regulations, and reassure law abiding citizens that they do not need the government’s permission to practice their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. A couple of important things to understand, this bill in no way eliminates the need for background checks. Under this bill, anyone looking to purchase a firearm of any kind from a licensed dealer would need to do one of two things, show a permit or pass a federal background check. For person-to-person the bill changes the punishment for selling a firearm to someone who shouldn’t have one from an aggravated misdemeanor to a Class D Felony.

I know the bottle bill will be of interest to many of you. It made it out of committee. This bill would allow the dealers of beverage containers to refuse to accept and refund containers if they contract with a redemption center to take the containers on their behalf. Allows a person to establish a redemption center without the approval of the DNR, as long as they submit notice and relevant information to be filed with the Department. I’m sure the debate is not over, as we all work to get the right thing done.”

Rep. Ray “Bubba” Sorensen & wife Maria.

And, in news of a more personal note, Rep. Sorensen said his family has a big announcement: “We are expecting our third child in August. Thanks for all the well-wishes, we are all very excited to meet our new little one.”

A regular, weekly meeting of the Cass County Board of Supervisors will take place in-person at the Courthouse in Atlantic, Tuesday, and can be viewed via Zoom, both beginning at 9-a.m. The Board has a light agenda, which includes a canvass of the March 2nd CAM School District Special Election to Adopt a Revenue Purpose Statement (RPS). Unofficial results show the measure passed last week by a vote of 170 Yes to 12 No. The Board will certify the election results Tuesday, making them official.

In other business, County Engineer Trent Wolken will provide the Supervisors with his weekly report on Secondary Roads Department activities and news.

A traffic stop on an SUV in Fremont County at around 1:30-a.m. Sunday (today), resulted in a pursuit, a crash, and the arrest of a juvenile. The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office reports a deputy tried to stop a Ford Explorer for not having headlights on, as the vehicle was traveling south on Highway 59, near the Shenandoah Wal-Mart. The driver failed to stop, and led authorities on a pursuit that started eastbound on West Nishna Road in Shenandoah, at speeds of up to 100 mph.

The SUV went out of control near 200th Street and B Avenue. It rolled into the ditch and landed on its passenger side. The driver was identified as a 14-year old juvenile from Essex, who had taken his mother’s vehicle while she was sleeping. The unidentified juvenile was taken into custody and transported to the Juvenile Detention Center, in Council Bluffs.

Fremont County Deputies were assisted during the incident, by Shenandoah Police and Page County Sheriff’s Deputies.

AMES, Iowa (AP) — Police arrested an Iowa man Friday in connection to a series of incidents in the Ames, Iowa, in which college women reported awakening to see a man watching them in their beds. The Des Moines Register reports that 29-year-old Trenton Williams of Ames was charged with robbery, burglary, stalking, harassment, trespassing, assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, among other counts.

Police say between 12 and 15 cases of illegal entry where reported in the area. Police say they obtained search warrants for his cellphone and contents after a woman showed them a video of Williams inside her apartment. The found videos on the phone showing him going inside many apartments and filming women as they slept.

CORALVILLE – The Iowa Department of Corrections reports 73-year-old Harry Edward Pedersen was pronounced dead due to natural causes (not covid-19 related), Friday afternoon. He died in a hospice room of the Iowa Medical and Classification Center.

Pedersen had been serving a 50-year sentence for multiple convictions the crime of Sexual Abuse 2nd Degree from Woodbury County. His sentence began on February 15, 1991.