(Radio Iowa) — A clinical trial for an experimental COVID-19 drug is now underway at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The hospital started enrolling patients last week to try Remdesivir [rem-DEH-sih-veer]. There have been promising results in lab tests, but it’s still not clear how safe or effective the drug is for people. Dr. Dilek Ince, a clinical professor of Infectious Diseases at the university, is leading the research team at the hospital. “In actual lab trials, in lab studies it’s shown to be very potent, very effective against multiple coronaviruses, including…SARS-coronavirus-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,” she says.

There are currently no FDA-approved drugs to specifically treat COVID-19. In the meantime, physicians and patients around the world are testing experimental treatments. Hospitalized patients can qualify the trial if they don’t have certain liver or kidney issues. Ince says patients are willing to try it, but they have questions. “Is it really going to help me? That’s hard to know, right?” Ince says. “So that’s why we tell them, ‘You know, under lab conditions it seems like this drug should help you, but that’s why we need the clinical trials because in the real world, we do not if it’s really going to help.'”

Patients who agree to participate in the trial will be given the drug being tested or a placebo for up to 10 days.

(Reporting by Iowa Public Radio’s Kate Payne)

The Adair County Board of Supervisors will hold an dial-in/electronic meeting 9-a.m. Wednesday, April 8th.  On their agenda is discussion and/or action on: Homestead/Military Disallowances; An Adair County Fair Board TIF (Tax Increment Financing) Project Addition; and discussion with regard to letters complaining about wind turbine noise.

The Adair County Engineer will then present his regular activities report, and discuss their social media policy & Secondary Roads’ Facebook page. The final item of discussion pertains to an update on COVID-19. Persons wanting to attend the meeting must call (605)-313-6157, and use the access code 526272#.

FORT MADISON, Iowa (AP) — A judge has ordered DNA testing on a hat left at the scene of a fatal 1976 shooting that an Iowa inmate hopes will prove he has been wrongly imprisoned for decades. Judge John Wright ordered the hunting cap shipped to a Virginia laboratory for testing that could show whether Gentric Hicks or someone else was responsible for killing 28-year-old Jerry Foster at a Fort Madison motel.

Scientists will seek to extract genetic material from inside the cap to create a DNA profile that could be compared to Hicks. Results from the Bode Cellmark laboratory could be available in coming months. Iowa has never had an inmate exonerated by DNA evidence.

The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office reports three people were arrested, Monday. At around 8:30-p.m., a Deputy was dispatched to a residence on Cornelia Lane in Missouri Valley, for an assault between a father and his son. While the deputy was en route, he was advised the son was walking toward the DeSoto Avenue Mini-Mart. The deputy made contact with 19-year old Ethan Soderstrom, who had a visibly bloody nose and several scratches on his face. The deputy waited with him until Soderstrom’s mother arrived and then went tot the residence, where 44-year old Jeffrey Nichols Soderstrom was placed under arrest for Domestic Abuse Assault causing bodily injury/1st offense.

And, at around 4-p.m. Monday, a deputy served 21-year old Jordan Walter Love with a temporary protection order, in Council Bluffs. Another deputy made contact with Jordan and placed him under arrest for having an active warrant out of Pottawattamie County, for Domestic Abuse Assault/1st offense, and Carrying a concealed weapon. 21-year old Julies Akeen WInston was arrested at the same location, for Carrying a Concealed Weapon.

WATERLOO, Iowa (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier) — A judge has upheld the city of Waterloo’s new law that bans many businesses from asking about applicants’ criminal records in the early stages of the hiring process. The Courier reports that Black Hawk County District Judge John Bauercamper sided with the city in a lawsuit by a business group that had challenged the so-call “ban-the-box” measure adopted last fall.

In its lawsuit, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry said the new measure violates a state law that prevents cities from adopting rules that exceed or conflict with federal or state law. But Bauercamper rejected that challenge, saying the city properly adopted the ordinance under its “home rule” authority under the Iowa Constitution.

Atlantic Public Library Director Michelle Andersen reports the library will offer another opportunity for library card-holders to check out new materials, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, this week. The material check out will take place similar to the curbside delivery offered in March, but Andersen says now, they are asking patrons to set an appointment to pick up materials in the reading garden.

Here are the rules:

• Patrons must request materials at least one day in advance of the day they wish to pick them up.
• Requests can be specific or general, but must include how many TOTAL items you would like.
• The policy of 4 DVD’s per account will continue.

Requests can be made through your online library catalog account, by e-mailing atlanticpubliclibrary@gmail.com, by calling 243-5466, or texting 712-201-3280. The Library staff will process your request and checkout to your account. Someone will then contact you to set up a pick-up appointment. Anyone who has reserves already waiting will be notified that they can set a pick-up appointment as well.

Grab & Go pick-up service will be available 11-a.m. to 5-p.m., Thursday and Friday (April 9-10), and 9-a.m. to 1-p.m. Saturday (April 11). At your scheduled time, walk into the garden, and your materials will be waiting for you. Please arrive at your scheduled time and maintain a six-foot social distance from staff. If you are sick, please do NOT come to pick up your materials. You can send someone else in your place.

Andersen says the Atlantic Public Library will re-evaluate this service on a weekly basis, and will follow recommendations from public health agencies. She says “We hope to offer some sort of materials checkout until the building is able to be open, but it may be discontinued at any time.”

(Radio Iowa) — In what may be the first cases of Iowans being penalized for violating state guidelines on the size of social gatherings, two people were charged at a weekend party in Storm Lake. Officers encountered a gathering in excess of 20 people at a Storm Lake apartment shortly after 4 am Sunday. Police secured the apartment and ultimately identified the tenant as 28-year-old Stephan Ali of Storm Lake. Ali was charged with allowing a gathering of ten or more persons, a simple misdemeanor.

Police further allege that after those that participated in the gathering were ordered to disperse, a female identified as 19-year-old Karla Rodriguez of Denison, returned to the apartment against officers orders. Rodriguez allegedly physically resisted officers as they were attempted to take her into custody, and she was ultimately subdued. Rodriguez was charged with Public Intoxication and Interference with Official Acts, both simple misdemeanors.

(Radio Iowa) — The Iowa State Fair is scheduled to start in 127 days. The annual event has been drawing over a million people to the fairgrounds in Des Moines for the past several years. Iowa State Fair secretary and C-E-O Gary Slater says it’s way too early to speculate about how COVID-19 may impact the event that starts August 13th. “Certainly we’ll have to make that decision prior to the fair, sometime in the summer,” Slater says. “But sometime within the next 70 to 90 days, I would guess.”

The fairgrounds were closed to the public in mid-March as Governor Reynolds started issuing orders to businesses to close. The World Pork Expo that was to be held on the fairgrounds in June has been cancelled. Slater says he’s monitoring COVID-19 developments on a daily basis. “I think it’s a touch-and-go situation in the next couple of weeks as to how quickly the state can get back to any sense of normal,” Slater says.

The last time the Iowa State Fair was cancelled was during World War II. The state fairgrounds were used as a military supply depot between 1942 and 1945. Slater posted a message on the Iowa State Fair’s website on Friday. Slater wrote that while there may be some changes related to COVID-19 protocols, he believes in uncertain times like these people will need the reassurance of State Fair traditions this summer.