Atlantic School District Superintendent Steve Barber and School District Registered Nurse Laura Freund, earlier this week, sent out a notice to parents/guardians of students in the district, and staff, with regard to preparations for the COVID-19 (or, Corona virus).  At Wednesday evening’s school board meeting, Mr. Barber essentially reiterated the same information, and  reassured the Board “We’re not in a panic mode right now. We’re paying attention to all the updated news each time. Hopefully, we prepared for the worst but hope for the best-type situation. The next couple or three weeks we’ll kind of know if anything comes from that arena as well.”

In the letter sent Monday, Barber said that he and Freund attended a webinar last ween, where officials made recommendations for school districts.  The message was simple, and has not changed: Wash your hands, wipe down surfaces, don’t share cups, and remain home if you are not feeling well.  Barber said “These are the same procedures we have in place and will continue to do. Our maintenance crew uses foggers to disinfect our buildings. We will be using these two times in all buildings over the next two weeks; then after spring break reevaluate.”

During the webinar, individuals from the Iowa Department of Public Health were there to answer questions.  Mr. Barber and Freund encourage anyone interested in factual information and recommendations to go to the site.  In addition, the cdc.gov site is one that provides national information.

Barber and Freund have been in contact with Mr. O’Donnell with regard to the Florida trip to Disney World in two weeks.  At this time, they say, the trip will take place at planned, unless things change. We have some time to look at the Spanish trip in Costa Rica in July and will continue to monitor the situation.

In the letter also, Barber and Freund said “In Cass County, we are blessed with some committed individuals in Public Health and Emergency Management.  We are and will continue to be frequently conversing with them and make decisions based on a team approach.  Our goal is to continue to inform staff and parents and ensure everyone is in the know if recommendations change.”

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Kim Reynolds says a 14th person who had recently taken a cruise in Egypt has tested positive for COVID-19. The news came late Wednesday afternoon on the same day that an Iowa City hospital CEO says a COVID-19 patient who took the same cruise was admitted and is in critical condition there.

University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics CEO Suresh Gunasekaran said all proper procedures and precautions were followed during the admission process so staff members were properly protected.

Both patients are among a group of 21 who went on a recent Egyptian cruise sponsored by Hills Bank in Hills, Iowa.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s three public universities announced Wednesday they would shift to only online classes beginning March 23 in an effort to keep students and faculty safe from the new coronavirus. The University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa said they would only offer online classes after students return from next week’s spring break.

The online courses would continue for at least two weeks, with officials reassessing the situation during the week of March 30. Some private colleges are making similar moves. The president of Grinnell College has told students they must leave the campus by March 23. Classes will be offered online for the rest of the semester.

Atlantic, IA — Cass County Health System officials announced that effective immediately visitors are now limited to all CCHS facilities. This measure is being enacted to protect the health of patients, staff, volunteers, and visitors and to proactively limit the spread of COVID-19. These visitor limitations are the same precautions that are taken during peak influenza times, which is still active in Iowa.

Effective immediately:

• Visitors are now limited to 1 or 2 essential support persons per inpatient. Essential support persons must be 18 years of age or older and in good health.
• Volunteer services are temporarily suspended until further notice. This includes volunteers at the Information Desk, Gift Shop, and other locations throughout CCHS. These measures are being taken to protect the health of our volunteers.
• Non-essential meetings for the public, including Healthy U, are postponed until further notice.

The public is encouraged to continue practicing good hand hygiene; frequent handwashing with soap and water is the best first line of defense against the spread of viruses.

CCHS officials do not encourage the use of masks by healthy individuals. Masks should be used by individuals with respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough, sneezing when they are within any CCHS facility for care. Individuals who are sick should also cover all coughs and sneezes in their elbow or tissues, and they should stay home until they are well.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Police say a man who was among a group of people trying to rob an armored vehicle outside of an Iowa bank was wounded in a shootout with the armored truck guards. The shooting happened Wednesday morning outside a Waterloo U.S. Bank branch in northeastern Iowa. Police and medics who arrived on the scene found a man with gunshot wounds who was taken to a hospital with serious injuries.

His name has not been released. Police say an initial investigation showed that people in a vehicle tried to rob the armored car in the bank’s parking lot when the shootout began. Police later located the vehicle they believed was used in the attempted robbery. No arrests have been reported.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A loaded handgun was spotted at a Sioux City airport security checkpoint Wednesday and confiscated from the Nebraska woman who was carrying it. The Transportation Security Administration says the 9 mm semi-automatic had one of its eight bullets in the chamber. A TSA officer says the X-ray machine showed the gun inside the woman’s carry-on bag. The woman lives in Ponca, Nebraska, and she told Sioux City Police that she didn’t know the gun was in the bag. She says the weapon belonged to her husband and that they had reported the gun as stolen because they lost track of it.

When the CAM School Board met Monday evening, in Anita, they continued discussions with regard to the District Facilities Upgrades. They hired a team of architects, engineers, and construction managers in 2019 to evaluate the condition of existing buildings in Anita and Massena. Superintendent Paul Croghan said the board received a data presentation the Boyd Jones-Alley Poyner Macchietto Architectural team, as a follow-up to the three community meetings held last month.

Croghan says they’re still in the initial stages. District patrons can stay up-to-date on the latest developments by attending future meetings, as scheduled.

(He said if you can’t make a particular meeting, the district will post a recap of it as soon as possible, on its website.)

[Here’s a link to the website and facilities information: https://sites.google.com/view/camcsd/community-meetings?authuser=0 ]

Crogan also wants to assure parents of students in the district, that they are doing everything possible to keep ahead of the possible spread of COVID-19 (The Coronavirus).

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa City hospital CEO says a patient suffering from COVID-19 has been admitted and is in critical condition there. Suresh Gunasekaran is CEO of the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, and he said in an email today (Wednesday), that all proper procedures and precautions were followed during the admission process so staff members were properly protected.

It’s unclear whether the patient is one of the 13 COVID-19 cases already reported for Iowa. The health threat has forced officials to cancel plans for massed gatherings. The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Society decided Tuesday to call off this year’s event in Cedar Rapids.

(Radio Iowa) — Governor Kim Reynolds is again lobbying President Trump and his Administration on ethanol policy. The E-P-A signals it will appeal a court ruling that sided with the ethanol industry and against some of the E-P-A’s waivers that let small oil refineries skip blending ethanol into gasoline. “We don’t think they should appeal it,” Reynolds says. “We think they should let it stand and that should be something that they implement nationwide.” Reynolds and other ethanol advocates have argued many of the hardship waivers for oil refineries were not warranted and a federal court. “We’re going to continue to reach out to the White House and say: ‘Let it go,'” Reynolds says.

A federal court ruled in January that any oil refinery waivers granted after 2010 should be extensions. The policy would significantly limit the number of waivers the E-P-A could grant. The Trump Administration has until March 24th to make a decision on whether to appeal. Groups representing farmers and the biofuels industry have been voicing their objections to an appeal. Dave Walton raises corn, soybeans and livestock on a farm near Wilton in east central Iowa. “Families in my state are looking at each other across the kitchen table this morning and wondering why the president through this appeal would try to prolong this fight between farmers, the EPA and oil interests,” he says. “It’s kind of baffling to us.”

Walton, who is active in the Soybean Association at the state and national level, says the waivers impact the biodiesel industry, too, and it would be — in his words “a kick in the teeth” — if the Trump Administration sides with the oil industry and appeals the ruling. “This issue could destroy President Trump’s relationship with leaders and voters across the heartland,” Walton says.  National Corn Growers Association president Kevin Ross farms near Minden in southwest Iowa. He says the potential appeal has injected more unneeded uncertainty into the marketplace. “This is a united front from agriculture, our biofuels groups and other supporters of the decision,” he says.

If the court ruling stands, the number of oil industry waivers from biofuel blending requirements would be drastically reduced in the future. The oil industry argues forcing small refineries to blend ethanol into gasoline puts a financial strain on small refineries. Farmers and biofuels groups say the waivers have depressed demand for ethanol and biodiesel.

(Radio Iowa) — State-licensed casinos in Northwood, Sioux City and Altoona were issued fines Tuesday by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission for violations related to customers who had banned themselves from betting. The Diamond Jo Casino in Worth County near Northwood was fined five-thousand dollars after a person who had banned themselves from gambling was sent promotional materials. General Manager Scott Smith says the error happened because the person had two accounts in the system. “We deeply regret that this did happen. We do take it very, very seriously,” Smith says. “And through this we found really a flaw within our system itself. And through property compliance our team there quickly corrected the issue that we had.”

He says they believe they have corrected the problem. “Since that time we’ve upgraded our casino management systems now where that type of thing doesn’t happen anymore where a duplicate account has to be created — which allowed just for human error within this. It’s very unfortunate, we took action right away with that one mailing,” Smith says. The Hard Rock Casino in Sioux City was also fined five-thousand dollars for taking eight days to upload new additions to the self-ban list as the state requires them to be loaded within seven days. Hard Rock general manager Doug Fisher says it was unfortunate that this happened. “This is nothing more than procedures not being followed,” Smith says. “So once we were notified of this we immediately revamped our procedures and to where we are now uploading every two to three days to avoid any type of these infractions moving forward.”

Smith says they hope the changes will keep this from happening again. “We’re quite frankly very embarrassed to be up here. I believe this is the first time that we have had any type of these offenses for our property,” Smith says. The fine was only five thousand dollars because it was the only violation in the last 365 days. Prairie Meadows Casino in Altoona was fined ten-thousand dollars for a set self-ban violations. Part of the fine was for failing to upload new people on the banned list in the required seven-day period. Prairie Meadows director of Security, Jake Hedgecock, says it was an employee error. “The employee in question had been disciplined and retrained accordingly. Also, we incorporated a new policy that each shift manager will do an upload and download each day — so that we will never be in front of you again talking about this violation,” Hedgcock says.

The second Prairie Meadows violation was a little more complicated. A person had signed up for a self-ban back in 2012, and then asked the Racing and Gaming Commission to take him off the banned list under a new rule allows someone to reconsider a self-ban after five years. The Commission did not show the man on the list — and it was determined that Prairie Meadows never loaded the man’s name into the system back in 2012. Hedgcock says it is hard to fully determined what happened as the database had been updated and revised through the years.

“So, when Prairie Meadows went back to review its information — our record show that we did everything correctly — but we truly don’t know because of the database not being around,” according to Hedgecock. “What I can tell you though is that Prairie Meadows is one of the first establishments that implement the self-exclusion platform in 1996, and we have never had a violation of this nature.” Violations of the self-ban rules start at five-thousand dollars and can be as high as 20-thousand dollars depending on the number of violations in a calendar year.