Free N95 masks pop up at Hy-Vee stores as omicron slams Polk County and childhood hospitalizations surge
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Free N95 masks are now available at some Hy-Vee locations in the Des Moines metro, with availability at every Hy-Vee expected Wednesday.
The masks are considered highly effective at filtering out airborne particles, including droplets from people infected with COVID-19. Health care officials recommend them over cloth masks to combat the highly infectious omicron variant that is slamming much of the nation.
The Biden administration announced last week it would distribute 400 million of the high-grade masks across the country. A Walgreens spokesperson told the Washington Post they expect their locations to have the free masks available at the end of the week. A CVS in Beaverdale posted a sign asking customers to check back on Friday for the new layer of protection.
From USA TODAY: Free N95 masks are on the way to store pharmacies. Here's when you can pick them up.
Clerks working at the Hy-Vee on Court Avenue and at 3330 Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway confirmed the N95s were available at their stores Tuesday morning, though a clerks at a few other stores said their stock hadn't yet arrived.
The Hy-Vee at Mills Civic Parkway was among the first stores in the nation to receive its share of the 400 million masks. It received and started distributing the masks last Friday, company spokesperson Christina Gayman said. She expects all 275 Hy-Vee Pharmacies across the Midwest to have the masks and start distributing them Wednesday. There will be "plenty of supply," she said.
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N95 masks arrive as Iowa, Polk County, face another wave of disease
On Tuesday, Polk County reported the highest seven-day positivity rate since the start of the pandemic, with more than one-in-three reported COVID-19 tests coming back positive. On average, 888 positive tests have been reported daily this month, Polk County Supervisor Angela Connolly said.
The vast majority of COVID-19 positive patients in intensive care units in Polk County hospitals are unvaccinated, she said, a trend that matches state and national cases. The strain of those and non-ICU cases on hospital staffs are "challenging our hospitals' ability to provide optimal care," she said.
"That unvaccinated individual is taking away from your parent, your brother, your sister, and your friend who may have suffered from a heart attack or another life threatening health concern and needs medical care," she said.
Polk County is opening a free testing clinic, with both rapid tests and the more precise PCR tests at its Polk County River Place facility at 2309 Euclid Ave. in Des Moines. Polk County Health Director Helen Eddy said they hope to divert people wanting a test from hospitals and doctor's offices and ease that burden some.
Some unvaccinated children are fighting severe long COVID symptoms
Between Christmas Eve and Jan. 18, the most recent day available, 183 children have been admitted to Iowa's hospitals with COVID-19.
At Blank Children's Hospital, doctors have seen a 300% increase in children that need to be hospitalized over the past month, Dr. Joel Waddell, an infectious disease specialist there, said.
That aligns with when omicron became the predominant strain of coronavirus in the state. Waddell expects that month-over-month increase to hit 400% by the end of the month.
About 94% of the children are not vaccinated against COVID-19, he said. While some are not old enough for the vaccines, many are not. The vaccination has been approved for people five and older.
The virus has hit some of the infants and children severely enough that they've needed to be placed on ventilators. While many children who contract COVID-19 have mild symptoms, Waddell said, not all are so lucky.
Some end up with a disorder called multi-system inflammatory syndrome, which, in short, happens when an immune system doesn't shut down after fighting off COVID. It leads to the immune system attacking organs, and a majority of those children suffer from heart inflammation and inflammation of their coronary arteries, he said. Doctors don't know what the long-term implications of the condition may be. Waddell said has never personally seen a child with the condition who had been fully vaccinated.
Beyond children so sick they need to be hospitalized, others suffer other forms of long COVID. Those symptoms can include daily "debilitating headaches, debilitating fatigue, often debilitating shortness of breath when walking of stairs, and frequent and constant dizziness," he said.
"This is hard to watch because it lasts for months, and some over a year," Waddell said. "It's like a year of their high school life has been stolen from them."
Waddell and other health care officials encouraged families to get their children the free vaccine and, when eligible, get the booster to protect against waning immunity.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a person who is fully vaccinated, meaning two shots of an mRNA vaccine or one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, is 17 times less likely to die from COVID, Eddy said. A boosted person is 68 times less likely to die from it.
Des Moines Register Reporter Tony Leys contributed to this report. Nick Coltrain is a politics and data reporter for the Register. Reach him at ncoltrain@registermedia.com or at 515-284-8361.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Where to find free N95 masks in Iowa during COVID-19 omicron surge
