Abby Beyer News Today

A cooker caught fire at a food vendor at the Iowa State Fair on Sunday.

MARY PIEPER Special to the Globe Gazette When Jake Tefft was hired for his first nursing job by MercyOne North Iowa in January 2020, he had no idea what was coming. The 27-year-old Mason City resident was still in training a few months later when the first COVID-19 patients arrived. “It makes it a whole different learning curve,” said Tefft, who works in the hospital’s critical care unit. “You are working on your own pretty quick.” He also had to do things h...