The joint task force between Marion County departments will now be only releasing weekly updates every Monday moving forward as it relates to case counts and COVID-19.

In their Monday update, which counts cases since Thursday evening, there were 24 new COVID-19 positive tests confirmed by Marion County Public Health. There are 57 active cases and 832 recoveries. Since the outbreak, nine deaths have been attributed to the virus, all of which were reported in September.

Going forward, updates on KNIA/KRLS for Marion County will come from the State of Iowa COVID-19 online database, with the weekly updates from Marion County Public Health on featured Tuesdays. According to Marion County Public Health, there are often discrepancies between local contact tracing efforts and numbers sent to the state, as well as in recovered patients and the criteria they have to meet in order to be considered a closed case.

Stay tuned to KNIA/KRLS for continuing local updates about COVID-19.