New shot, no problem

Residents and staff at a local nursing home reported few ill effects following the first round of COVID-19 vaccinations last month.

Community Memorial Health Center and Assisted Living (CMHC) administered the first round of Moderna's two-dose coronavirus vaccine on Dec. 21 and Dec. 30. According to Administrator Dr. Janette Simon, all but four residents and tenants received a shot, as did 85 percent of staff members. She said rumors that some staff members were hospitalized following the inoculations are completely untrue, and the only side effects reported were sore arms and slight headaches.

"Nothing more than getting a flu vaccine," she said. "The employee's decision to receive the vaccine was one more thing in a career-long list of things they have done as a matter of personal sacrifice for the vulnerable and precious people they serve."

The second doses will be administered at CMHC during the weeks of Jan. 18 and Jan. 25. The FDA claims recipients should have full immunity two weeks after the second shot.

No preventative protocols regarding visitations have changed at CMHC. Simon didn't expect revisions until March or later.

"We're onward and upward," she said. "Nobody is sitting around a table thinking about what we can change immediately because vaccines are out."

A new, highly-transmittable strain of COVID-19 was recently discovered, which has Simon and others in the healthcare field on alert. Disease experts don't believe the new variant is more deadly, but it has been found to spread much easier.

"We're paying as much attention to data as possible and reading anything we can find out about it," Simon said.

• Positivity rates still in double digits

COVID-19 positivity rates in O'Brien and Clay counties remained at 10 percent or above over the past two weeks, but they are less than a month ago.

As of Tuesday evening, O'Brien County's 14-day positivity rate was 13.1 percent while Clay County's was at 10 percent. Those figures were hovering around 20 percent a month ago. The statewide positivity rate was at 13.5 percent.

Coronavirus-related deaths were at 53 in O'Brien County and 16 in Clay County. O'Brien County's death toll is one of the highest in northwest Iowa, with only Plymouth (60) and Woodbury (171) counties recording more. Statewide, there have been 3,999 COVID-19 deaths since March.

Confirmed infections since the pandemic began tallied 1,617 in O'Brien County, 1,573 in Clay County and 287,325 statewide. Recoveries in that same order were 1,420, 1,328 and 247,849.

As of Sunday, there were 571 coronavirus-related hospitalizations in Iowa. Two were from O'Brien County and none were from Clay County.

Editor's note: This article reflects that CMHC received Moderna's vaccine and not Pfizer's, as was reported by the Sentinel-News on Dec. 24. We regret the error.