This weekend will mark five years since the point when the brunt of the then-rapidly growing coronavirus pandemic truly struck Siouxland.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds announced that schools would close on Monday, March 16, 2020, and then restaurants were closed down for inside seating for several weeks.
Many people began what had been unimaginable prior to that point in many jobs, when working from home grew exponentially for lots of jobs, while others that were deemed crucial, such as food production, were kept open.
People were really thrown for a loop as to how life changed, in how they interacted socially, and carried out their jobs. Perhaps bigger than all that, thousands of people in the tri-state area tested positive for coronavirus, and then a surge of deaths began.
Here are a few stats:
May 1 marked the first 1,000 positive cases of COVID-19 being reached in Woodbury County. The number reached 2,000 cases only two weeks later on May 13, amid an outbreak in meatpacking plants.
There were 22 deaths in Woodbury County from COVID-19 by late May 2020, then 100 by Thanksgiving that fall. Eventually, more than 350 people have died in the county to now, and that total was in the thousands in all the tri-state counties.
Unsurprisingly, the coronavirus pandemic was hard on Iowa’s health care workers. Many doctors, nurses and support staff endured long hours, and that led to a lot of people leaving the workforce.
For this episode of What’s The Frequency, we are taking a look back to how the pandemic transpired in Siouxland, and then gauging some of the ways life has changed, and some lessons that have been learned.
The guests for this episode are Kevin Grieme, who is health director at Siouxland District Health Department, Angela Bemus, who is associate superintendent in the Sioux City School District, and Dave Faldmo, a physician assistant at Siouxland Community Health Center.
Bemus said students are only now catching up to the place they were prior to the pandemic, and all three officials say that mental health changes in people of all ages are still present today.
The health leaders also discuss the trust that people have for public health initiatives and the waning acceptance by some people to get vaccines.
*Click on the audio link above to hear the entire show.
What's The Frequency, Episode 56.
