Friday, January 29, 2021
PHOENIX – Anthony Gilich remembers March 16, 2020, the day when the National Junior College Athletic Association announced it was canceling the remainder of the spring sports seasons because of COVID-19.
The Central Arizona College baseball coach, now in his seventh year, had to tell his players something he never thought he would have to say – their season was over.
“It was one of the worst moments I’ve probably had as a coach to be honest with you,” Gilich said. “There is no way to sugarcoat (it).”
Yavapai baseball coach Ryan Cougill also remembers that day vividly.
“It was one of the worst things I’ve had to do,” Cougill said. “It was made worse because I didn’t get to do it in person.”
Before the pandemic cut its season short, Central Arizona looked to repeat as NJCAA Division I World Series champions from 2019, while Yavapai hoped to build on a 22-3 start.
Over 10 months have passed and with less than a week until the beginning of their spring seasons, two of the best Arizona junior college baseball programs are gearing up for a unique season under the COVID-19 umbrella.
Central Arizona and Yavapai,two talented ball clubs playing under the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference (ACCAC), both have been ranked in the Top 25 in numerous preseason polls, including Perfect Game and Collegiate Baseball.
A judge has rejected Pima County's efforts to reinstate its mandatory curfew that was temporarily halted after it was challenged by local bars.
A group of Tucson bars sued the county for the harm they faced from the 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and was granted a preliminary injunction on Jan. 19 preventing the county from enforcing it.
Owners of Cobra Arcade Bar, HighWire Lounge and The Maverick filed a joint lawsuit on Jan. 5 contending the county overextended their legal authority to mandate a curfew.
The owner of The Maverick, Grant Krueger, included other Tucson restaurants he owns in the lawsuit: Union Public House, Reforma Modern Mexican and Proof Artisanal Pizza & Pasta.
On Jan. 22, the county responded with a motion that would allow them to continue the curfew, but Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson denied it on Wednesday.“Defendant argues Plaintiffs’ harms are lessened by the ability to sell food and beverage for offsite consumption even if the curfew is enforced, and their decision not to do so when the curfew was in effect was voluntary. The County also argues its ability to respond to the emergency created by the pandemic is substantially limited if the stay is not granted,” Johnson wrote in the ruling. “The Court considered these arguments in its ruling on the preliminary injunction, and found Plaintiffs demonstrated irreparable harm, and that the balance of hardship tipped in Plaintiffs’ favor.”
The court ordered the preliminary injunction on the grounds the curfew is not “statutorily authorized,” the plaintiffs demonstrated the harm it causes them and it violates Gov. Doug Ducey’s executive order.
The governor’s May 12 executive order states: “...no county, city or town may make or issue any order, rule or regulation that conflicts with or is in addition to the policy, directives or intent of this Executive Order, including but not limited to any order restricting persons from leaving their home due to the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
The curfew was originally set to end when the county reached a rate of 100 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people. Its current rate is 9,598 cases per 100,000, according to Arizona Department of Health Services data.
The curfew will be halted until a resolution of the case. A trial date has yet to be set.
In a matter of days, Pima County is on track to pass the paradoxical intersection of administering 100,000 COVID-19 vaccines after surpassing 100,000 coronavirus cases today.
On Thursday, the county administered 94,370 doses and reported 100,272 coronavirus cases Friday, according to Arizona Department of Health Services data.
“Our vaccination plan was really designed to increase early impact through accelerated immunization,” said Dr. Theresa Cullen, the county’s public health director. “The good news is I think we are starting to see that acceleration, and hopefully, we will soon start to see the impact of that on our community in terms of morbidity and mortality.”
Those 75 and older are eligible for vaccinations, as are educators, childcare providers and protective service workers—a group Cullen estimates to be around 150,000.
According to the public health director, the county is administering about 35,000 doses a week, which puts them on track for 140,000 vaccines by the second week of February.
With the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines needing second doses for full immunization, Cullen said the 1B priority group in Pima County’s vaccine rollout might not be done so soon.
“One would think in four weeks we'd be done, right? Because not everybody's going to get the vaccine. Remember, people are getting two vaccines. So once we throw that second vaccine in there, the numbers become a little extended in terms of how long it takes,” she said.
The next eligible group will be the 65 and older population, which Cullen estimates is a group of more than 200,000. Although the current priority group still needs to receive second doses, the 65 and over crowd could be eligible sooner than expected.
“The question everybody wants is when are we going to flip the switch? I would reassure you that we're in the process of doing some calculations, and some of it is related to that second shot,” Cullen said. “But it'll definitely be sometime in February, maybe the end of February. We thought maybe the middle of March—I think it will be earlier if our vaccine distribution holds.”
With 5,028 new cases reported today, the total number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases surpassed closed in on 750,000 as of Friday, Jan. 29, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County, which reported 698 new cases today, clearing the six-figure threshold, having seen 100,272 of the state’s 748,260 confirmed cases.
A total of 13,022 Arizonans have died after contracting COVID-19, including 1,736 deaths in Pima County, according to the Jan. 29 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases statewide has declined in recent weeks after peaking at 5,082 on Jan. 11 but remains above the peak levels of the summer’s first wave. ADHS reported that as of Jan. 28, 3,970 COVID patients were hospitalized in the state. The summer peak of 3,517 hospitalized COVID patients was set on July 13; that number hit a subsequent low of 468 on Sept. 27.
A total of 1,723 people visited emergency rooms on Jan. 28 with COVID symptoms, down from the record high of 2,341 set on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. That number had peaked during the summer wave at 2,008 on July 7; it hit a subsequent low of 653 on Sept. 28.
A total of 1,002 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on Jan. 28, down from a peak of 1,183 set on Jan. 11. The summer’s record number of patients in ICU beds was 970, set on July 13. The subsequent low was 114 on Sept. 22.
Despite last week's announcement that COVID-19 cases had decreased and that some elective surgeries would resume, Arizona’s largest hospital system is still caring for more patients than it did during the summer surge.
“Patient care in our hospitals has not yet returned to a state that I would define as usual and customary, and I would caution you against celebrating too early as we slowly work our way out of this difficult surge,” said Banner Health’s Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Marjorie Bessel said at a Wednesday press conference.
Banner is using thousands of out-of-state healthcare workers while upskilling others to help in its ICUs, Bessel said.
The hospital’s forecasting predicts it will take two to three more months for Arizona to fully recover from the winter surge in cases with many more weeks of high numbers of hospitalizations.
Bessel said Banner hospitals frequently monitor the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation tool to grasp likely consequences of COVID-19 in the future.
Estimates predict Arizona will reach 18,500 deaths by May if it continues its current mitigation policies against the virus. If the state eases current mitigations, the death total could reach 22,200 by May, Bessel shared.
WASHINGTON – Total deaths in Arizona rose 25% in 2020 over the previous year, with some counties seeing increases approaching 50% for the year in which COVID-19 became the leading killer in the state.
While data on the causes of death is not expected until later this year, experts attribute the “exceptional increase” in deaths to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to fatalities that may be indirectly caused by the pandemic.
“COVID appears to be the reason,” said David Sklar, a professor at Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions. “Other problems have also increased, such as opioid-related deaths, and some have decreased, such as pedestrian-related deaths because people were driving less and were out less. But COVID has been a large contributor to our increase.”
The Arizona Department of Health Services reported this month that there were 75,133 deaths in the state in 2020, an increase of 24.9% from the 60,161 deaths reported in 2019.
Holly Poynter, a spokesperson for the state health department, said while it’s likely “COVID-19 deaths are a factor” in the increase in deaths, state officials will not be able to say for sure until complete data on cause of death is available later this year.
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center, 8060 E. 22nd St., opened to recreational sales yesterday.
Desert Bloom, which carries a wide range of flower, edibles, concentrates, lotions and similar products, follows midtown dispensary Harvest, which began recreational sales last Friday.
Other dispensaries are expected to start offering the sales in the coming weeks after the Arizona Department of Health Services allowed recreational cannabis sales to begin, letting dispensary owners know adult-use recreational sales can move forward as soon as licenses are approved and dispensaries are set up to handle both aspects of the market.
Applications for adult-use sales began on Jan. 19, but were restricted to existing medical marijuana establishments that qualified for early "dual license" applications. The language of Proposition 207 that legalized cannabis use for adults over the age of 21 gave AZDHS two months to review and approve applications.
By the end of last week week, though, 86 licenses had been approved. Several Tucson dispensaries have also been authorized for recreational sales, including Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center, Green Med/Purple Med (6464 E. Tanque Verde and 1010 S. Freeway Drive), Prime Leaf (4220 E. Speedway and 1525 N. Park Ave.) and Nature Med (5390 W. Ina Road in Marana).
Nature Med has announced it will open to recreational sales on Feb. 25 and Prime Leaf is shooting for March 1.
Most dispensaries are not yet ready to start recreational sales, as there are several barriers to immediately expanding, not the least of which is the current state of the coronavirus pandemic still raging through the state.
Find more details here.
As the spread of COVID-19 forced social distancing policies and widespread business closures, many have lost their jobs since the virus reached Arizona in January 2020.
December saw the smallest gain in employment since recovery began in May, with only 900 jobs added across the state, according to the latest data analyzed by George Hammond, director of UA’s Eller College of Management Economic and Business Research Center.
Weekly claims for unemployment insurance in the state peaked on April 4 at 132,428. The latest data from Jan. 23 shows 18,090 unemployment claims, according to data from the Economic and Business Research Center.
Arizona’s unemployment rate dropped from 8% in November to 7.5% in December, but Hammond says “the state rate has been exceptionally volatile this year.”
“Overall, the state rate can be safely said to have fallen from its April peak, but it is not at all clear by how much,” he wrote in the report.
Employment in Arizona dropped by 150,700 since February 2020, for a total loss of 4.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey.
The survey showed 66,600 jobs in Arizona were lost from 2019 to 2020 for a total loss of 2.3%. In Tucson, employment dropped by 2.9% with 11,300 jobs lost.
Hammond said if Arizona can sustain the average job growth rate it's held since June at about 11,000 per month, it will be back to the February job peak by September. If job growth returns to pre-pandemic levels, however, the state might not reach that peak again until March 2022.
While trade, transportation and utility jobs grew 19.1% above their February level, jobs in leisure and hospitality declined 46,6%, accounting for over half of jobs lost since February, Hammond reports.
Flagstaff was the hardest hit since February followed by Yuma, Lake Havasu City-Kingman, Tucson, Phoenix and Sierra Vista-Douglas.
PHOENIX – Amid moves by some states to declare racism a public health issue, experts are looking to medical schools to identify strategies to improve care for people of color and eliminate disparities related to a patient’s race or ethnicity.
Dr. David Acosta, chief diversity and inclusion officer with the Association of American Medical Colleges, said students’ training and exposure regarding racism in health will help effect needed change.
“It’s going to require certain attitudes, behavioral changes … constructing the knowledge base so that everybody – not just students of color – but everybody now becomes aware in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, whatever health profession,” Acosta said.
The deaths last year of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Dion Johnson and other Black people at the hands of police sparked a new racial reckoning, and governors in Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and other states issued executive orders declaring racism a public health crisis.
A slew of city councils and county governments passed similar resolutions, while other states established antiracism work groups or are reviewing policies and addressing institutional racism in public health, criminal justice and other areas.
In Arizona, no action has been taken by Gov. Doug Ducey or the Republican-controlled Legislature to make a formal declaration.
