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Iowa News Headlines for Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020

News

August 20th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:15 a.m. CDT

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A spokesman for Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says that the state is correcting a major flaw in its coronavirus data that backdated thousands of positive and negative test results. Reynolds spokesman Pat Garrett said that the state’s data system had been erroneuosly recording the results of people who were tested on multiple occasions. He said that an individual’s most recent result, whether positive or negative, was “unintentionally attributed to the date of their first test.” That means thousands of recent results were being recorded in the system as having occurred in March, April, May and June.

CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) — An increase in coronavirus cases has prompted Iowa prison officials to stop admitting inmates from county jails to the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville. The Department of Corrections said Wednesday that 59 inmates have tested positive in the last week out of nearly 800 tests conducted at the center. When officials believe the virus is no longer spreading in the facility, they will end the suspension. Staff implemented enhanced quarantine and testing measures after an inmate tested positive for the coronavirus last week. Inmates typically are temporarily assigned to the center before being sent to another prison in Iowa’s system. The Coralville center usually admits about 65 inmates a week from jails.

CLARION, Iowa — A north central Iowa woman died Wednesday evening during a collision between a motorcycle and and SUV. The Iowa State Patrol reports 56-year old Michelle Joann Gambrill, of Clarion died when the motorcycle she was riding was struck after the SUV, driven by 40-year old Michael James Curtis, of Clarion, turned from Highway 3 onto 10th Street, in Clarion. Authorities say Gambrill became separated from her motorcycle following the collision, and was dragged several feet before the SUV came to rest on top of the motorcycle.

LeCLAIRE, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a second person has died from injuries he received in an eastern Iowa boat crash on the Mississippi River. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says 61-year-old Craig Verbeke, of Moline, Illinois, died in a hospital Wednesday, three days after a boat he was aboard collided with another boat on the river near LeClaire. The crash also killed Dr. Anita Pinc, of Moline, Illinois, a 52-year-old Davenport obstetrician and gynecologist. Officials said she and Verbeke were aboard the same 19-foot Bayliner boat. Officials say a 36-year-old woman on the other boat — a 35-foot center-console vessel — suffered minor injuries.

NEVADA, Iowa (AP) — Police say an arrest warrant has been issued for a 24-year-old man wanted in connection with the alcohol-related death of a central Iowa teenager. Television station WOI reports that the warrant charges Austin Ray McFall, of Indianola, with supplying alcohol to an underage person resulting in the death of 18-year-old Taron William Harmon, of Nevada, Iowa. Officers were called to a Nevada home on April 19 for a report of an unresponsive person and found Harmon’s body on the home’s porch.