community refrigerators

Here’s how Iowa food pantries contend with still-present pandemic and new challenges

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In 2021, Kelli Greenland and her two children used food pantries more often than they ever have. As the year closes, the Des Moines mom is filled with uncertainty. Greenland said she visits one or two food pantries weekly to keep her children, Ethan, 8, and Skylynn, almost 6, fed. There seems to be less meat available these days, Greenland said. She sometimes has trouble finding dairy-free options for Skylynn, who is lactose intolerant.

Long COVID Syndrome

More than a year later, exhaustion reigns for COVID-19 long hauler

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Editor’s Note: This story was updated Dec. 9, 2021, to include news that Darcy Havel-Sturdevant contracted COVID-19 again. The migraines, exhaustion and shortness of breath have existed dating to before Darcy Havel-Sturdevant was diagnosed with COVID-19 in April 2020. The shortness of breath has improved a bit but the rest remaine going into the Christmas holiday season. So do dizziness and confusion.

COVID-19

Ankeny parents upset over no quarantine policy in letter to district

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Some Ankeny parents are frustrated after receiving a letter Wednesday night that the Ankeny Community School District will not require students to quarantine if they have been exposed to a person who has tested positive for COVID-19.  

“At this time, our public health authorities have informed us that the district may not quarantine students,” said the letter from Erick Pruitt, who began as district superintendent in July. “We will continue to collaborate with the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Polk County Health Department to ensure our actions are aligned with their direction. We recognize that this guidance is subject to change. Please refer to the Iowa Department of Public Health for the most recent guidance.”

Ankeny is the sixth-largest district in the state with more than 12,000 students and 2,285 employees, according to the district website. LaKeshia Richmond of Ankeny is a mother of three children.

Fighting COVID-19 in Iowa

As Iowa opens up, COVID-19 vaccination rates continue to slow

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It’s a hot evening at the Broadway Neighborhood Center in Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa. Student volunteers have set up a mobile COVID vaccination clinic among the apartment complexes that house many immigrant and refugee families. 

But the clinic struggles to attract residents. In recent weeks, demand for the COVID-19 vaccine in Iowa has declined sharply, even though less than 70 percent of Iowans have had at least one dose. 

Andrew Coghill-Behrends, the center’s site director, hits the streets. His goal is to get at least 20 people in for the shot. “It’s really about talking to people and seeing if you can find them where they’re at, and encourage them to come over, said Coghill-Behrends.

COVID

The virus and the Class of 2021: ‘We all have it in common’

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About 40,000 Iowa 12th-graders marked graduating from high school with caps and gowns. For some, there were also face masks. “Each and every one of you have made it here, through the worst conditions the world has ever faced,” Des Moines North senior speaker Braeden Okic told a crowd of fellow graduates on May 30. COVID-19 struck in the spring of 2020, when Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered schools to close. By fall, each school had developed its own plan for studying while staying safe.

coronavirus

Doctor treating COVID patients: “We work hard to try to facilitate communication but it’s often not possible”

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On a normal day, helping sick people cope with the most serious, life-threatening illnesses is a given at the medical intensive care unit at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Lung failure, liver failure, kidney failure – the list goes on. Dr. Gregory Schmidt sees a little more than a dozen of these patients during morning rounds, then works with other healthcare givers at the hospital to map a plan to save each person’s life.

Fighting COVID-19 in Iowa

Dying while denying: one of the heart wrenching stories from treating COVID patients

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Kirstin Brainard’s daily rounds as a floor nurse at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics’ medical intensive care unit are a mix of reviewing how patients have done the past 24 hours, helping treat those patients and taking new admissions. Brainard is part of an 8-person team, which has to be ready to deal with any emergency on the hospital floor.