Arizona COVID-19 Response Back in June 2020 was Bad > 7 Months Later IT'S WORSE

Let's look back first to a report from June 2020:

Updated Jun. 11, 2020 5:19PM ET 

Reference > https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-is-so-bad-in-arizona-theyre-running-out-of-beds

COVID Is So Bad in Arizona They’re Running Out of Beds

STORM BREWING

“It’s like Katrina,” one health expert in the state said.

As of Wednesday (June 10, 2020) afternoon, Arizona had at least 28,296 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1,706 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, which also showed a concerning upward trend.

The state had 1,553 new cases on June 5, its highest daily peak for new cases since the pandemic began.

According to a comparison of all 50 states, the Johns Hopkins data showed that Arizona had among the biggest upward case trends of any state in the U.S.

“We have seen a steady climb of COVID-19 cases in Arizona over the last two weeks,” Banner Health tweeted on Monday.

On May 15, the state’s stay-at-home order ended. Since that date, according to the hospital, “ventilated COVID-19 patients have quadrupled.

“This trend is concerning to us, and also correlates with a rise in cases that we are seeing in our hospital ICUs,” Banner Health wrote.

“We’re going to run out of room to care for people, we’re going to run out of PPE, out of ICU beds, out of hospital beds, and we aren’t going to be able to provide care for the population of people who are going to need it.

Days before those tweets, Dr. Cara Christ, the director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, sent a letter to Arizona hospitals on June 6, ordering them to “fully activate” any COVID-19 emergency plans to prepare for crisis care 

> ". . .In the beginning, Arizona “had a really good stay-at-home order that people complied with,” said Will Humble, from the Arizona Public Health Association, a nearly century-old nonprofit that has helped shape public health in the state. “It had teeth in it, and Arizonans did a good job.” But the order ended on May 15, and then Memorial Day weekend provided the opportunity for residents to socialize, drink, and attend nightclubs, he said.

> “By May 26, there was a consistent increase in all 15 counties, and that trend was remarkable—it looks like a checkmark,” he continued. “Cases were declining, then the stay-at-home order ended, and they shot up.”

. . . But make no mistake, said Humble: “There’s a storm brewing.” 

“From a big picture perspective, all the sacrifice we’ve made as a state and as individuals has been squandered,” Humble added.

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2 DAYS AGO: January 9, 2021

Arizona tops COVID-19 marks of 10,000 deaths, 600,000 cases

State remains a coronavirus hotspot     

by Associated Press 

Arizona, a national COVID-19 hot spot, has passed the grim milestones of 10,000 deaths and 600,000 known cases since the pandemic began.

The Department of Health Services reported 11,094 additional cases and 98 deaths on Saturday.

Those numbers increased the pandemic totals to 607,345 cases and 10,036 deaths.

Arizona and Rhode Island are tied for the worst COVID-19 diagnosis rate in the country, with 1 in every 109 people diagnosed with the disease between Jan. 1 and Friday.

Saturday was the second straight day that Arizona reported more than 11,000 additional cases. There were 4,920 COVID-19 patients occupying hospital inpatient beds on Friday.

 

5 DAYS AGO:

Arizona becomes Covid hotspot of the world as governor resists restrictions

Vivian Ho

the Guardian |

Doug Ducey has declined to institute a statewide mask mandate even as the state reports the highest rate of new cases in the US

Arizona is reporting the highest rate of new coronavirus cases in the United States, as the state’s governor continues to resist calls to install strong restrictive measures.

With an average of 118.3 new cases per 100,000 people, Arizona has become what health officials call the latest “hotspot of the world” because of soaring case loads.

> The state has the highest coronavirus diagnosis rate in the US, with one out of every 119 people testing positive in the past week.

> It reported nearly 300 coronavirus deaths, a pandemic high, and nearly 10,000 new infections on Thursday.

The surge has stressed Arizona’s healthcare system, with a record 4,920 Covid-19 patients occupying inpatient hospital beds and a record 1,101 patients in intensive care.

Health officials have urged Doug Ducey, Arizona’s governor, to install new measures as cases surge. Ducey, a Republican, so far has declined to institute a statewide mask mandate, allowed school districts to mostly make their own choices and allowed businesses to stay open.

“We have a governor and health director who don’t care. Their goal in my opinion is to vaccinate their way out of this,” said Will Humble, the head of the Arizona Public Health Association. “Eventually it will work. There’s just going to be a lot of dead people in the meantime.”

CJ Karamargin, the governor’s spokesman, said the current number of cases and deaths are “heartbreaking” but it’s a phenomenon happening in other states even with strict stay-at-home orders. . .

> “It’s way worse than July already, and it’s going to continue to get worse. We’re probably two weeks behind LA in terms of our situation,” said Humble, referring to Los Angeles county, where a Covid-19 surge has created a shortage of oxygen and led ambulance crews to stop transporting patients they can’t revive in the field.

> Dr Joshua LaBaer, the director of the Biodesign Institute research center at Arizona State University, called the state “the hotspot of the world right now”. He believes at least 1 in 10 people actually has the virus. . .

Dr Marjorie Bessel, the chief clinical officer of Banner Health, the state’s largest hospital chain, said the uncontrollable spread of the virus could be lessened if the government enforced mask requirements, barred indoor dining and cancelled large gatherings. People also need to wear masks and limit their contact to only those they live with.

“We are not doing a good job with this virus,” Bessel said of the state.

> “At this time during the surge of the pandemic, we need additional mitigation. We need enforcement of those mitigation activities, and we need everybody to do their own part.”

 

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