(Radio Iowa) – Iowa College Aid reports a slight drop in the number of students filing the information that’s used to determine if they qualify for federal aid, state-funded grants, and scholarships provided by colleges and universities. Spokesperson Elizabeth Keest Sedrel says the filing rate for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA fell from 54 to 52 percent. “We’ve been working on pumping up the FAFSA filing numbers for several years — and we’ve been very successful — we’ve been seeing year-over-year increases,” according to Sedrel. “And, along about March when COVID really became a big issue in the United States, Iowa like all of the states in the country, really saw those rates start to dip.”

She says part of the issue could be the seniors have been at home and not in school. “When K-through-12 schools closed the physical campuses, high school seniors wouldn’t have had regular personal contact with their school counselors any longer. And a lot of times these school counselors are the ones who facilitate that filing for financial aid,” Sedrel says. She says it could also be due to uncertainty about what would happen with colleges. “We do think that there was in issue with students not being sure what was going to happen with schools in the fall,” she says. “A lot of the time period we are looking at here — physical campuses has closed for the remainder of that school year — but schools hadn’t yet announced their plans for the fall of 2020.”

Sedrel says the positive is Iowa hasn’t seen the drop that other states have. “It’s happened all across the country. Iowa has actually seen a smaller dip than most other states — so we don’t want to paint this out to be a dire situation,” Sedrel says. But we are going to have to offset the loses from this year as we do look to moving forward on these FAFSA numbers.”  She says getting financial aid for students aligns with the Future Ready Iowa goal of having 70 percent of the workforce with education or training beyond high school by 2025. Sedrel says students and families can go online and file for FAFSA to find out how much aid is available.

The State of Iowa’s Coronavirus dashboard (as of 11-a.m. today), shows there were six more deaths reported since Monday, and 513 new, confirmed positive cases of COVID-19. The State’s death toll from the virus is up slightly, to 799, and the number of positive cases stands at 39,420. The IDPH says 423,223 Iowans have been tested. Of those, 382,357 have tested negative for COVID-19. Officials said also, 28,319 persons affected by the virus have recovered from it.

Hospitalization data show: two more people with COVID-19 were hospitalized, for a total of 223; 74 individuals are in an ICU (two less than Monday); 23 were admitted (up 2 from yesterday), and 32 were on a ventilator (2 more than Monday). In RMCC Region 4 (southwest/western IA), data show no change in the number of persons hospitalized, at eight. One less person was in an ICU (3 total), and one person each was admitted and on a ventilator.

Long-Term Care (LTC) data show 17 outbreaks (1 more than the past few days), 462 staff/patients have tested positive for the virus, 95 have recovered and 426 have died.

Here is the latest data for confirmed cases and the number of persons recovered from COVID-19, in Cass and surrounding counties, plus any change in the numbers:

• Cass: 30 positive cases, 28 recovered [3 more recovered than reported Monday]
• Adair: 20 positive cases, 16 recovered
• Adams: 12 cases (recovered data still not available from the IDPH)
• Audubon: 21 cases [1 more than Monday], (No recovery data available)
• Guthrie: 107 cases [4 more than Monday], 62 recovered
• Montgomery: 21 cases [2 more than Monday], 16 recovered [3 more than yesterday]
• Pottawattamie: 925 cases [11 more than Monday], 704 recovered [8 more than yesterday]
• Shelby County: 125 cases, 122 recovered

(Radio Iowa) – Starting today (Tuesday), hospitals in Iowa’s largest metro area will again restrict visitors.  Due to the steep rise in COVID-19 cases, especially in Polk and Dallas counties, the Des Moines metro area hospitals will stop allowing any visitors, with just a few exceptions, like if the patient is under 18, in maternity care, is suffering from delirium, or is imminently dying. The latest visitor ban covers Broadlawns, MercyOne Des Moines and West Des Moines Medical Centers and UnityPoint Health – Des Moines. Officials say they understand the restrictions may be difficult, but they’re in the best interest of hospitalized patients and staff.

Polk County Health Department spokesperson, Nola Aigner Davis says the county has not seen an increase in COVID-19 related hospitalizations. But it has been averaging between 120 and 130 new confirmed cases daily. “When we see high cases like that, we want to put our most vulnerable populations, including our hospitalized individuals in the most safest conditions possible,” she says.

Davis says the county has seen cases increasing since late June. “We could peak higher than what we saw in May. So when we see numbers like that we know we have to protect our most vulnerable and those are patients that are hospitalized.” Hospital visitor restrictions were put in place statewide in March, and then eased in June as cases at the time were dropping.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports 29-year old Brandon Michael Johnson, of Council Bluffs, was arrested Monday, on a valid warrant for Contempt of Court. Johnson was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

One person was seriously injured during a single-vehicle accident in Shelby County, Monday evening. According to reports, the crash happened just before 7-p.m. near the Shelby County Golf Course. Westphalia Fire and Rescue was called to the scene, along with LifeNet helicopter.

Additional details are currently not available.

Accident scene photo submitted to KJAN