WC Iowa News

At Gov. Kim Reynolds' April 7 press conference, the Iowa National Guard announced it would set up medical coordination centers in each of the state's six healthcare regions.

This will allow the National Guard to be able to assist health care providers in making decisions based on immediately available resources including beds and personal protective equipment. 

The Siouxland center, or district three, will be located in Sioux City. District four's headquarters, which includes Crawford County, will be located in Council Bluffs. 

More than 200 servicemen and women are aiding in the effort to get much-needed medical supplies to locations across the state.

During the news conference, Iowa officials also explained the rationale behind implementing a shelter-in-place order for a certain portion of the state. Iowa is one of a handful of states that have not issued an executive stay-at-home order. The state has, however, taken measures to slow the spread of the virus, including closing schools and all non-essential businesses. 

The state is broken into six regions. Each region is weighted in categories including age, hospitalization and long-term care. Each category has a maximum point value of three. Regions must have 10 or more points to institute a shelter-in-place order.

"And by using these metrics, then we will be able to if we hit a certain point that we think we will have to take additional actions or additional steps, then we can do that," Reynolds said, according to KTIV. "But as this moves across the state and hopefully we don't see that in western Iowa or north-central part of the state, but if it does and things start to stabilize and we start to see a decline and actually experience the outcomes that we want, we might be able to start to open up the eastern part of the state based on the data and the metrics that we are looking at, at that time."