Iowa’s total COVID-19 deaths increased by double digits each day this week. On Monday, the state had 355 COVID-19 deaths reported and Friday at 11 a.m. there were 419 deaths. Statewide as of Friday there were 16,415 confirmed cases and 8,834 of those people had recovered, for a recovery rate of nearly 54%.

Washington County Friday had 176 confirmed cases and eight total deaths from the virus. Washington County Public Health Director Danielle Pettit-Majewski encourages people to continue measures to prevent the spread of the virus, “We still continue to have coronavirus activity in our community, so even though things are beginning to open we still would want to just restate how important it is that we continue to stay home as much as we can, social distance, wash our hands, not touch our face, all of the same things.”

The state updated the coronavirus website earlier this week, so data is provided in real time instead of the daily updates it previously had posted. The website will be down for maintenance this weekend.