DES MOINES, Iowa - University of Iowa researchers say a quick loosening of COVID-19 restrictions could lead to a surge in cases.

Their latest report prepared for the state Department of Public Health was released by Governor Kim Reynolds office Wednesday.

"The relaxation of interventions to contain COVID-19 too early is expected to lead to a large increase in daily infections," said the report in part. "Absent any additional measures to keep the outbreak from spreading, such an approach is still expected to yield more infections and hence deaths than more intensive interventions."

The report also said social distancing policies introduced by Governor Reynolds in mid-March substantially lowered the spread of the virus.

It said the widespread use of "face shields" is an option to safely relax social distancing measures. It further conclude that the universal use if face shields along with social distancing policies would have lowered the number of COVID-19 cases in the state.

A summary of the University of Iowa researchers' findings is below:

The social distancing policies that were enacted on March 17th in the State of Iowa, when a Public Health Disaster Emergency was declared by the Governor, substantially slowed the spread of COVID-19.
Had the same social distancing policies been enacted one or two weeks later, assuming a comparable degree of adherence, the incidence of reported and unreported cases of COVID-19 would have been accelerated.
Implementing the widespread use of face shields provides a recourse for safely relaxing social distancing measures during “reopening,” even if the face shields offer small levels of protection.
Hypothetically, if universal face shields had accompanied the enaction of social distancing policies, either the rate of increase in COVID-19 incidence would have been slowed, or a steady decrease in incidence would have materialized.
If universal face shields offer high levels of protection, implementing them could rapidly and dramatically reduce the number of infections across the state, allowing society to reopen safely while continuing to decrease the number of new infections.

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