Family: COVID delays in moving Iowa man contributed to death

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The family of a retired school superintendent who died from an infection unrelated to COVID-19 believes he would have had a better chance of surviving had his transfer to a larger hospital not been delayed for 15 days by the coronavirus pandemic. Dale Weeks’ twin daughters told the Des Moines Register that said Weeks stayed at the relatively small hospital in Newton, west of Des Moines, because larger hospitals couldn’t spare a bed for him. Weeks died Nov. 28 at age 78. He’d been at a University of Iowa hospital since Nov. 17, but his arrival there from a smaller hospital in Newton had been delayed.