Iowa sees COVID-19 deaths milestone in December as coronavirus vaccine nears
Veronica Guevara spent a month this spring watching her grandfather slowly dying of COVID-19 during video calls. Jose Dolores Guevara Ramirez, known to friends and family as Don Lole and a resident of Marshalltown, died May 27, one week after Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds had ordered flags flown at half-staff to honor Iowans lost to the disease. He was among the first 525 Iowans to fall victim to the pandemic, part of the spring wave of death that ripped across the state. Seven months later, the number of Iowans killed by COVID-19 has risen nearly six-fold, to more than 3,100 people. As of Fri...