Close Up: Iowa caucuses, RSV in Iowa, Varsity Cinema reopens
Close Up: Iowa caucuses, RSV in Iowa, Varsity Cinema reopens
coming up on close up national democrats move to pull Iowa's first in the nation caucus status. Why Iowa democrats say this fight is far from over plus *** virus. Many families are dealing with why Rsv is hitting Iowa so early in the season. This is Iowa's news leader. This is K C. C. I ate news close up. Good morning and thank you for joining us. I'm scott carpenter Iowa democrats have held their party's first in the nation presidential caucuses for the last 50 years but that run is one step away from officially being over on friday. The DNC's rules and bylaws committee voted to pull Iowa out of the coveted top spot and put south Carolina in its place Nevada new Hampshire Georgia and michigan will round out the first five states in the nomination process. Now before that vote, members of the committee explained why they felt it was time to replace Iowa at the top of the nominating process. I think as the president has highlighted so eloquently, our early states must reflect the overall diversity of our party and our nation economically, geographically, demographically. And so our candidates, when we run them through this gauntlet, they have to show us first and foremost that they get our loyal base, but then they've got to show us that they can move to hispanic base which is um not quite as loyal but still very big. Still very important to democrats got to show us that they can win those suburbs in Georgia that are so vibrant and growing and that contain *** lot of college educated white women who are often with us, but sometimes not. We can't keep take them for granted. We need to show that we can win those college educated techies in new Hampshire and that we can keep them with us. I want to thank scott and the state of Iowa for the historic role it has played in this process in our, in our political history. It's remarkable, has helped produce some amazing nominees and presidents. But we have said at the beginning of this process that as *** party, we are changing as *** we have different needs, we have different as our priorities evolve as our electorate evolves. That we needed *** process that evolved and I think this is *** process that allowed us to do that. Um, and I think this result reflects that we are bringing more voices into the process earlier and we're making ourselves more competitive in *** general election. And that's what the DNC is supposed to do make us competitive in *** general election. Well, I support the guiding principles established by this committee and reinforced by the president. I cannot support the proposal before us. We are now faced with *** situation in which no state situated in the central or mountain time zone is represented in the three in the pre window and three of the five early window states that have been proposed or among the original 13 Small rural states like Iowa must have *** voice in our presidential nominating process. Democrats cannot forget about entire groups of voters in the heart of the Midwest without doing significant damage to the party for *** generation. We recognize that the caucuses as they were no longer aligned with 21st century democracy and that we had no alternative but to reimagine the Iowa caucuses as *** vote by mail state party run event and still we received no consideration. Our process allowed flexibility as to the date while complying with Iowa law and an additional state could have been added to the existing for as in *** date as an additional state could have been added to the existing form. Instead, two very large, very expensive states are being added to the mix. This will surely favor frontrunners and billionaire vanity candidates. Make no mistake, republicans and I will seize this opportunity to double down on their caucuses and feed the narrative that democrats have turned their back on Iowa. The actions taken here will be taken as *** refusal to have *** dialogue with voters and will exacerbate electoral difficulties in Iowa. Now Iowa republicans called the democrats decision to pull Iowa's first in the nation status utter chaos. Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufman released *** statement calling the democrats new presidential nominating calendar and unserious alternative from an unserious president. Coffman also says the fight here is not over. The Republican national committee has already said Iowa will go first in their presidential nominating process in 2024 And Iowa's top election official says he's disappointed in the decision. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says Iowa has done *** fantastic job vetting candidates over the last 50 years. He also says without *** win in Iowa, it's doubtful Barack Obama would have made it to the White House. Pate also points out *** section of Iowa law that requires our caucus to come before other states. That is Iowa code 43.3 regarding political party precinct caucuses. Under that law, the Iowa caucus must be at least eight days earlier than any other caucus or primary in the presidential nomination process. But the DNC says regardless of state law, there will be penalties if Iowa should try to hold its caucus before the five states at the top of their calendar right away. Iowa would lose half of its nominating delegates to the nominating convention. The rules committee could then vote to strip Iowa of all of its delegates. Presidential candidates are also banned from campaigning in states that jump ahead candidates who do anyway would lose any delegates they won in that state Casey Ci political analyst Dennis Colford has studied the Iowa caucus for decades. We asked him how Iowa got to this point and whether there's anything that can be done now to keep Iowa first. I've had *** sense that this is coming but still I'm just sort of amazed that it actually occurred. The caucuses are not great predictors of who will the next president be. Jimmy Carter won. The caucuses went on to become president in 76. That didn't happen again until 2000 with George W. Bush. And that didn't happen again in 2 2008 with Barack Obama in terms of contested caucuses. So only three times in the past 52 years, more or less have we had *** caucus winner actually become president. Uh They do *** little bit better predicting who the party's nominee might be, but I think it's 43% of the time or so it predicts *** Republican nominee and about 55% of the time it picks *** Democratic nominee. But still it's roughly 50 50. The rest of the country traditionally has watched this even if they don't like the position. I was in the rest of the country has watched how their favorite candidates do or don't do in the caucuses and they take that as *** sign that maybe this person's got staying power or maybe that person can't go the distance. We typically have said that there are three tickets out of Iowa you gotta finish 1st, 2nd or third plausibly have *** chance to win the nomination. That's just the way it's occurred. There's no rule or anything like that. But Iowa typically. Um and there are typical times typically will say who is likely not to be president but oftentimes that doesn't work either because in 2020 Joe Biden finished fourth in the caucuses. He didn't do well in new Hampshire and yet south Carolina saved his campaign and of course he became president. The democrats feel that I think they've been on the defensive politically for quite *** while. The republicans that we certainly see here in Iowa are very much on the offensive. They've been *** rising tide and the democrats tend to think of their difficulties more in terms of procedures. Well, we don't get really the results we want because we got the wrong procedures or techniques. If we fiddle with those, then we'll fix the problem. Um, that's that's as though they're, they're saying, well the problem is the car's not running well or our tires don't have air in it. The broader problem for democrats is who's driving and where is the car going? That's what democrats still have to figure out. Where do they want to go in terms of substantive message, But for right now they're focusing not on *** substantive message issue. They're talking about fiddling with their nomination. It's not impossible for the D. N. C. As *** whole, the Democratic committee as *** whole to reverse what the committee recommended. Is it likely, boy, I wouldn't bet more than *** nickel on that. Um, it's why go through all this grief in order to reverse course down the road when you cause even more chaos and grief. So now the full vote from the Democratic national Committee is expected to come early in the new year making the decision final Still to come on close up Iowa Children hit hard by RSV why it started spreading so early this year and it's been *** part of the Drake University neighborhood for 80 years. *** look inside the revamped varsity theater. Welcome back to close up Iowa doctors knew the respiratory disease RsV was coming but say it hit harder and earlier than expected. State health officials say the week before thanksgiving over 1300 people tested positive for RsV. Many of those patients were young Children and now those Children are filling local hospitals, they work in health care. And so I decided to bring him to the E. D. Downstairs and they admitted him right away because of RsV. That's what he has. We got very lucky um that when we came to the emergency department we were able to be seen and they were right on it and and got them admitted right away. But it is bad. Rsv is bad, flu's coming around and that's worse this year. So there's just *** lot of yucky things for the young kiddos that are not good right now. It is *** surprise in the sense that the last two years, everything has been so much slower but we had early data coming out of Australia and as it started to sweep through the United States that we were gonna be in trouble. It is very scary. RSV season hit here very early this year. Um at *** record time earlier than we typically see. We've had some change in the seasonality of *** lot of our viruses after Covid. And this is definitely *** sign of that change where we've got ongoing normal fall illness is happening in the beginning of the winter illnesses and RsV just wedged its stuff in there early and has been very significant with er visits and hospitalizations from respiratory events. RSV is probably the majority of those. But we have *** variety of winter respiratory illnesses that we're seeing right now, including influenza, para influenza and other common cold viruses. So what is *** common cold to you or I that we can sniff and blow our nose or cough pretty well. It clogs their airways completely and it interferes with their ability to get oxygen into their lungs and then they struggle. So signs that you need to go to the emergency department are when they're having increased work of breathing and they're not able to maintain their hydration, they may not eat normally, but if they're still having good wet diapers and still urinating well that's an encouraging sign. But when they're struggling to breathe and it's interfering with their ability to sleep and eat. That becomes more of *** problem. So our volumes in the emergency room are over two times what we would normally see at this time of the year. So that is extraordinarily hard on staff. And it's hard because we're here to serve our community. Everyone wants to take care of Children. So when our wait times go up or we know that families leave without getting the services that they came to get. That that weighs on all of our staff because we want to make sure that we serve our community and get kids the care that they need. But it's also fatiguing when you're running that high of volumes. There are days where we have every room in our emergency room filled with *** patient holding for *** bed. Because we don't we're out of inpatient beds due to the same problem all these respiratory illnesses. And then we don't we have very little space to see all those patients that are waiting in the er and coming through the doors were still facing the change in health care that that the pandemic left us with with nursing shortages and changes in how we staff and structure. Yes we're able to handle it. We have surge plans. We have um strategies by which we can utilize different areas of the hospital and we need to we have been admitting some of our pediatric patients to the adult floors. We've had pediatric patients in the ICU. We've admitted pediatric patients at Lutheran and at west and our pediatric specialists go to take care of them. So we're using every potential strategy that we have. But it is taxing and it is it is hard when you're trying to make sure that you serve the largest population in Iowa for families and this is not ever popular at the holiday season. But if you know that you have *** sick family member or you know that your child is sick, avoid being out and exposing other individuals, avoid sending your sick child to daycare because these respiratory illnesses are spread with coughing and sneezing and kids aren't the best about washing their hands and blowing their noses. And we know that in an entire day care population, an entire young school age population can be completely affected by just one child transmitting this illness. So washing your hands, keeping your kids home if they are sick and if you know that your young child is going to be out and around others who are sick, try to avoid it. I recognize that not all families have *** choice and they've got to take their kids out, they've got to send them to daycare but really choose wisely on where your exposures are with your kids. Many times we've been seeing infants to three weeks of age coming in and had been out in public places had been out with family who were sick. And again, we think that just because it's *** cold and grandma or grandpa or *** cold and one of us that it's not that big of *** deal. We should not be kissing on our little list of babies. We should not be spreading this virus because they don't have the ability to handle it. Well, Dr. Woods says, RSV cases usually reach their peak in January February or March. The hope is because it hit so hard and so early this year, cases will begin to drop in early 2023 Still to come on close up. But look inside *** revamped varsity cinema. What the owners say the 80 year old theater can now offer that other multiplexes can't december 30th 2018 was *** sad day for Des Moines movie fans. The varsity cinema, which had been *** part of the drake University neighborhood for 80 years closed after showing the film cinema paradiso, but 11 days from now, the varsity reopens with *** revamped look thanks to years of fundraising and work by the Des Moines Film Society. The varsity has an 80 year legacy here in Des Moines that us as an organization and an ownership group really wanted to make sure that we maintained And it's the idea that the varsity provides *** different level, *** different type of hub of social and cultural activity here in the heart of des Moines that we want to make sure is not only here for our current generation, but is here for generations into the future. What we hope is that over our opening weekends, starting on December 15, people will get *** chance to see the diverse type of programming that we're going to have everything from classic films that that kind of ring our heart, pull our heart strings all the way to some cutting edge indie and, and local filmmakers to really touching on *** cinema club that really brings in the youth to make sure that we are really hitting all different types of markets from across the community. Well, it's, it's very exciting. You know, we've been working on this for about four years now. So to think that we're really only *** couple of weeks away from being able to welcome people back in here and show movies again, we are extremely excited about that. Um, of course we're also aware that we have some details left to finish. So, uh, you know, we're working very hard to make sure that those all get finished. And uh, I just want people to have *** wonderful experience when they come back into the former city. We had *** couple of goals and, and one of the goals was historic preservation. Um, you know, it is *** historic tax credit project and it was important to us to preserve those really important historic elements of the varsity. And so we hope when people walk in, they see some of those key historic elements that they remember. But you know, we also were looking to make some really important upgrades as well. And so you know, one of the biggest ones of course is the new auditorium, there's *** loft auditorium, *** second auditorium where people can, you know, see even more films, we've expanded the law, so there's more space for people to gather to hang out to have *** drink before or after, um, expanded concessions. So in addition to the classic movie concessions, folks can have beer, wine, alcohol. We've made the building fully accessible, which I think is *** really important amenity that we've added and just kind of, you know, general upgrades, you know, throughout the building. Um, you know, um, *** lot of upgrades to the quality of the, uh, presentation everywhere. So, um, yeah, I just, I think *** lot of, um, you know, details that people are gonna, you know, hopefully notice and really enjoy when they come back in. No, it's, it's not easy. And it's, it does, it does take passion. But um, you know, we're *** nonprofit that's dedicated to the art of film and we believe that, um, you know, film is an art form, you know, just like the opera or the ballet or any of these other art forms that um, you know, deserves to be celebrated and um, you know, deserves this kind of hard work and preservation and we want to put the best film on screen for people of des Moines and we want to highlight films that may not come here otherwise and highlight diverse voices and we need *** place to do that. And the best place to do that is at the varsity. And so we're so excited that we've had this opportunity to restore this beautiful theater. And so if you wanna get your tickets, you know, on your phone ahead of time, reserve your seats, you can do all of that just, you know, walk in, go right to your seats. You know, you've got *** Q. R. Code and all that kind of stuff. Um, so yeah, I would say, you know, the same experience you would expect to any modern theater you can have when you come to the varsity, you know, and that's something, you know, I think *** lot of times people think about the varsity for what it offered, you know, program wise and the kind of, you know, the art house films and things, which we still will do and it's still important to us. But you're absolutely right. You know, here in Des Moines, our movie theaters have have really moved way out into the suburban ring And so we're very excited to bring movies back into the heart of Des Moines and be right here in the drake neighborhood and be *** place that those of us that live here in the city can go to and be close by and can bike to and be on *** bus route and honestly be *** neighborhood theater, which is what this theater was when it was built. And we're excited to be that again, there will be *** set ticket price. But one of the things as *** non profit theater, One of the things that's really going to be important to us is building *** base of memberships. So there will be an opportunity for individuals or families or different levels of membership to gain benefits like discounted discounted tickets. Uh, this kind of concessions, early access to films, different things along those lines. Now, all the upgrades to the varsity didn't come cheap. The des Moines Film Society says the restoration work cost $5 million tickets for the december 15th opening are on sale online. Go to varsity des Moines dot com. The Varsity theater has been part of the drake University neighborhood since 1938. But the building the theater calls home was there much earlier than that when it opened in 1917. It was *** car dealership changing hands several times in 1922 coca cola bought the building and made it *** bottling plant after 16 years coke outgrew the facility, selling it to *** family who converted it into *** new theater that opened christmas day 1938 still to come on close up, vote certified. What officials discovered when they put this year's election to bed. Well the 2022 election is mostly in the books here in Iowa. On thursday the state board of canvassers officially certified results in all but three places recounts in House District 59 Sarah Gordo County, House District 73 in Linn County and House District 81 means their results will have to undergo *** special canvas now. Over 1,230,000 Votes were cast in the state, the second highest turnout in Iowa for *** midterm election, 55% of registered voters cast *** ballot. This time around more than 839,000 cast *** ballot in person on election day, 370,000 used absentee ballots. *** highly participated election here in the Hawkeye State. Well, thank you for joining us for k c. C. I ate news close up. Be sure to follow us throughout the week as we continue to follow the caucus decision and what it means for Iowa. We hope you have *** great week. We'll see you back here. Same time next sunday. Have *** good one.
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Close Up: Iowa caucuses, RSV in Iowa, Varsity Cinema reopens
On this episode of Close Up, we take a look at a recent change in the Democratic National Committee's presidential nominating calendar and what it could mean for Iowa's future.Iowa doctors say respiratory syncytial virus hit harder and earlier than expected. State health officials say the week before Thanksgiving, over 1,300 people tested positive for RSV. Many of those patients were young children.The Varsity Cinema is reopening in Des Moines thanks to years of fundraising and work by the Des Moines Film Society.
DES MOINES, Iowa —
On this episode of Close Up, we take a look at a recent change in the Democratic National Committee's presidential nominating calendar and what it could mean for Iowa's future.
Iowa doctors say respiratory syncytial virus hit harder and earlier than expected. State health officials say the week before Thanksgiving, over 1,300 people tested positive for RSV. Many of those patients were young children.
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The Varsity Cinema is reopening in Des Moines thanks to years of fundraising and work by the Des Moines Film Society.