IowaBio wants to provide our members useful information during the COVID-19 pandemic. This newsletter compiles information on state, federal and industry action to combat the virus and its impacts.

If your company is helping respond to COVID-19, IowaBio wants to know about it. Please, send any information about what your biotechnology company or organization is doing to help, to Jessica Hyland at Jessica@iowabio.org.

If IowaBio can assist you in getting information out, connecting with public officials, or support your company in another way, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Past IowaBio COVID-19 Update newsletters are now available at www.iowabio.org/COVID19 and can be found under the Industry News tab on the IowaBio website.

Iowa Update

Friday afternoon bars in Des Moines filed a lawsuit against the State of Iowa after Governor Kim Reynolds issued a proclamation that closed bars, taverns, wineries, breweries, distilleries and nightclubs in six counties and restricted restaurants that served alcohol. The Governor's proclamation impacts Black Hawk, Dallas, Johnson, Linn, Polk and Story counties. All of these counties have four-year colleges, except Dallas County, and the demographic with the most new positive COVID-19 cases has been 19-24 year-olds, the Governor said last week in her press conference announcing the closures. The full proclamation can be found here. Read more here.

Key Statistics

Iowa
Currently, IDPH has reported on the state’s coronavirus dashboard, 64,598 Iowans have tested positive, up 2,929 from our update Friday morning, with a total of 632,397 tested.  21 additional deaths were reported since our last update, bringing the total to 1112 deaths. Now 46,650 Iowans have recovered. The latest on hospitalizations, including how many patients have been admitted in the last 24 hours can be found here.

School district statistics including positivity rates by county can be found here. According to guidance issued by the Iowa Department of Education, schools may petition to go to hybrid or online learning with less than 50 percent in-person instruction when the per county percentage positivity rates are above 15 percent in a county on average over the past 14 days (rolling average) AND 10% absenteeism among students is expected for in-person learning.

US
Total Cases 5,934,824
Total Deaths 182,149

World
Total Cases 25,245,930
Total Deaths 846,851

BIO Pipeline Tracker
696 Unique compounds in development
178 vaccines
190 antivirals
328 treatments