Fighting COVID-19 in Iowa

Iowan’s struggle with long COVID enters third year

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Darcy Havel-Sturdevant thought she’d be working by now, two years after being diagnosed with COVID-19. Likewise, she thought she would have been there completely for her daughter, age 3 when Havel-Sturdevant was first diagnosed but now 5. “Throughout the last two years, she’s been really great with helping me if I need help,” Havel-Sturdevant, 35, of Iowa City said about her daughter, Rayne. “If I get really sad or frustrated she’ll start singing ‘Rockabye Baby’ to me and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.’ So that shows like the level of empathy and compassion that children have, you know, at that young age, especially, at least in my case, during the pandemic.”

Havel-Sturdevant said she tried to be optimistic that COVID-19 will end for her but more likely must accept what she called a new baseline for normal living. IowaWatch has been following Havel-Sturdevant’s bout with COVID-19 this past year because of her extraordinary problems with the infection.

Fighting COVID-19 in Iowa

Podcast: Battling COVID-19 warning fatigue

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IowaWatch · COVID Messaging Fatigue in Iowa

A year ago, as Iowa hit the first anniversary of dealing with COVID-19, healthcare workers had a plea: use self-protection, like masks and social distancing, to keep the highly contagious coronavirus from spreading. Hospital beds were full and the ability to respond to the pandemic was hampered by overwork and healthcare workers, themselves, getting sick. “Certain days are harder than others. You know, it kind of depends on what’s going on,” Lilly Olson, a University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics floor nurse, said talking with IowaWatch in January 2021 as Iowans moved into year two of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was one of several healthcare workers with whom IowaWatch spoke last winter during a report called Voices of COVID.

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.

coronavirus

Exhausted hospital workers face ongoing COVID-19 hospitalizations

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On the eighth floor of Iowa Methodist Hospital in downtown Des Moines, 56-year-old Russell Braley watched daytime TV in one of the recovery units, breathing through a tube running from his nose to an oxygen unit. “I’ve been in motorcycle wrecks. I’ve almost died several times in my lifetime. This was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through,” Braley, a resident of Des Moines, said about his recent battle with COVID-19. He said the virus nearly killed him.

Small Town Solutions: Staying Vital in Rural Iowa

Parkersburg grits through pandemic

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PARKERSBURG, Iowa – After a killer tornado in 2008 and the murder of a beloved community leader a year later, many folks in Parkersburg felt they could take just about any punch thrown at them. Then came the coronavirus pandemic. It claimed lives and took a bite at businesses. But as was the case with those prior tragedies, the people of Parkersburg weren’t about to be defined by this latest challenge. Instead they defined themselves by what they would do to overcome — support one another.

2020 Census

Belmond makes sweet music out of COVID

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BELMOND, Iowa – Rob and Melissa Arnold are emerging from the pandemic of the past year and a half. Instead of waiting it out, the Arnolds took advantage of the opportunity to retool and renovate their restaurant, Sugarpie Bakery & Cafe. The restaurant reopened again to dine-in business in late July. The Arnolds could have reopened sooner. But buoyed by Melissa’s skills with wedding cakes and bakery items, they made ends meet on carryout business and took their time to do the renovation the way they wanted it.

Small Town Solutions: Staying Vital in Rural Iowa

Businesses band together for southern Iowa’s Humeston

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HUMESTON, Iowa – Terrie and Tom Woods enjoy road trips to small Midwest towns and their locally owned stores, which explains why the retired Sherwood, Arkansas, couple ended up in Humeston in mid-May. “We just like small towns,” Terrie Woods said about being eight-and-a-half hours away from home and searching through Civil War-themed fabric at Snips of Thread Quilt Shop and The Yarn Pantry. With support from the Solutions Journalism Network

A group of downtown shop owners in this southern Iowa town of 465 people love stories like  that. They see it as a sign that their efforts are working when collaborating to make Humeston a vibrant place, even though the town lost population in the 2020 census from the 494 counted in the 2010 census. 

“Our businesses work well together to promote Humeston,” Leigh Ann Coffey, a local real estate agent, said. “We’re not in competition with each other.”

Their pitch: good products, good service and the charm of small-town shops.

Small Town Solutions: Staying Vital in Rural Iowa

Denver, Iowa, aiming for new heights after pandemic

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DENVER, Iowa – The Bremer County community of Denver, which has dubbed itself “The Mile Wide City,” in contrast to its altitudinally enhanced Colorado counterpart, had quite a mountain to climb out of the pandemic, business, school and community leaders said. But it climbed out. “Denver was fortunate,” said Gene Leonhart, a former longtime mayor, who still serves on the city Planning and Zoning Commission. With support from the Solutions Journalism Network

Leonhart and others who were interviewed for the IowaWatch project, “Small Town Solutions,” said the city had a lot going for it headed into the pandemic. IowaWatch spent four months checking into towns that buck the declining trend of other rural areas and show signs of a growing population, a strong sense of community, activities and schools. 

Voters in the Denver Community School District, on the cusp of that pandemic, approved a bond referendum for a new high school and middle school building — just a few years after building a new community recreation, arts and events center, called the Cyclone Center, so named after the school teams’ mascot.

Health

As demand for COVID-19 vaccinations drops, one Iowa community nears herd immunity

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Genesis Ramirez grips a digital timer, her legs swinging in a chair in the waiting room of the Meskwaki Tribal Health Center in Tama County, Iowa. The 17-year-old just got her second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. But she didn’t do it just to keep herself safe. “My family is very high risk, and I don’t want to bring anything back to them where I can’t help them,” Ramirez said. Ramirez isn’t a member of the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi, also known as the Meskwaki Nation.