Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Pima County’s COVID-19 testing program will continue for at least another week.
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry asked the Pima County Board of Supervisors to consider suspending the county’s free COVID-19 testing program due to a lack of funds from the state, but the county is maintaining the program until at least March 2 following an announcement from the state health department that they’ll provide Pima County around $14.4 million to support testing efforts.
Huckelberry first suggested halting the testing program in a memo released Feb. 18 after state officials told the county they would only reimburse $1 million in testing costs out of the $47,750,000 in COVID-19 testing the county incurred since April 2020.
While initially running the county’s testing operations under the assumption Pima County would be covered by the $416 million provided to Arizona for testing through the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Huckelberry wrote in the memo that the federal funds are “being used by the State for other purposes,” adding, “It appears the uses for which the State will be using these funds is for everything but COVID-19 testing.”
With no state reimbursement, any further county testing operations would incur deficit costs.
On Feb. 19, the Arizona Department of Health Services sent out a press release announcing it will release $100 million in federal funding to support testing across the state.
ADHS is disbursing the funds to counties using a formula of a $100,000 base amount with additional funding based on the county’s percentage of the state’s population. Pima County should receive $14.36 million.
After receiving the notification before a joint special meeting between the Pima County Board of Supervisors and Tucson City Council on Friday, Feb. 19, the Board of Supervisors decided to postpone the vote to halt testing until the next board meeting on March 2.
Lupe Solis’ prayers were answered when she received her second dose of COVID-19 vaccine recently at the State Farm Stadium mass vaccination site in Glendale. Now the 77-year-old is being cautious and patient, waiting to worship in person again at St. Timothy Catholic Church in Mesa.
“Prayer takes up a big part of our life,” Solis said. “We cannot participate in church activities. I will not feel safe now.”
Some churches have resumed in-person worship in Arizona, but Solis, who lives in Chandler, is still playing it safe after receiving both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Like so many of the nearly 1.3 million Arizonans 65 or older, Solis has adjusted to the safety precautions that have upended life since the onset of the pandemic. With COVID-19 ravaging Arizona’s senior community, many long to return to normal activities but remain apprehensive.
As of Friday, more than 11,500 Arizonans 65 or older have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, with a majority of those deaths in Maricopa County, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Now, in accordance with phase 1B of vaccine rollout, the state has been doing what it can to get vaccinations to the older population as quickly as possible. Seniors make up more than half of the 1,027,816 people in the state who have received at least the first dose.
Monday, February 22, 2021
For the fifth straight week, COVID-19 conditions improved across the state.
The week ending Feb. 14 saw a 35% decrease in total COVID-19 cases across the state from the week prior, according to Dr. Joe Gerald, a University of Arizona professor who creates weekly coronavirus epidemiology reports based on Arizona Department of Health Services data.
In Pima County, cases declined 31% from the week before, Gerald said in the report.
The past four weeks have seen 5,308 COVID-19 cases the week beginning Jan. 17, 3,782 cases the week of Jan. 24, 2,473 cases the week of Jan. 31 and 1,586 cases from Feb. 7 to Feb. 13, according to the most-recent Pima County data.
Hospitalizations have also decreased in these four weeks, with 283 reported the week of Jan. 17, 242 the week of Jan. 24, 140 the week of Jan. 31 and 99 the week of Feb. 7.
In the same four-week timeframe, the county reported 173, 101, 64 and 23 coronavirus deaths respectively.
Gerald’s report says the week ending Jan. 17 remains Arizona’s deadliest at 1,011 coronavirus deaths across the state.
COVID-19 cases continue to remain above the threshold of 100 new weekly cases per 100,000 residents, which signifies elevated risk. Gerald said the week of Feb. 14 saw 158 new cases per 100,000 of the population.
As of Monday, Arizona holds the 17th highest rate for transmission in the country, according to CDC data. Gerald says the state is the sixth hardest hit in terms of identified cases.
Arizona saw a 28% decrease in general ward hospital bed usage among COVID-19 patients during the week of Feb. 19, while the number of coronavirus patients occupying ICU beds dropped 26% from the previous week, according to Gerald’s data.
The University of Arizona moved to phase two of its reentry plan Monday with its nearly 8,000 students now able to attend in-person classes of 50 or fewer.
From Feb. 12-21, UA administered 15,047 COVID-19 tests and found 20 positive cases for a positivity rating of 0.1%, down from last week’s percent positivity of 0.3%.
The university’s goal is to keep this number below 5%, which they’ve maintained for several weeks.
“National and state and even Pima County data continues to look better. We are reassured that all of the programs that we have put in place to continue to operate our university have been working well because of the data that we have seen,” said Dr. Richard Carmona, UA's reentry task force director and former U.S. surgeon general. “But with that in mind, we still cannot be complacent. We must still work hard, tirelessly to maintain the privilege to keep our university open, to educate our students and be part of a bigger community.”
Dorm residents or students who attend classes in person are required to take one COVID-19 test a week. To enforce the testing requirement, university students won’t be able to access the school’s Wi-Fi network until they’ve verified they received a COVID-19 test.
The university is loosening some restrictions in dorms and will allow guests in common areas to use recreational amenities such as pianos and game tables, Carmona said.
UA expands hours of operation as a state-run POD
The university began operations as Pima County’s first state-run POD, or point of distribution, on Feb. 18.
Carmona announced on Monday the POD will expand its hours of operation from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m seven days a week.
“Nationwide, the number of cases in the last couple of weeks is down by 40%. The number of deaths down by 30%. But over the weekend, we as a nation reached a very bad milestone: 500,000 people have died from this disease,” University President Robert C. Robbins said. “This is still a deadly virus. So the fastest way we can get a hold of this pandemic is to get as many people vaccinated as possible.”
With 1,507 new cases reported today, the total number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 809,000 as of Monday, Feb. 22, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County, which reported 138 new cases today, has seen 108,479 of the state’s 809,474 confirmed cases.
As the national death toll topped a half-million people, a total of 15,502 Arizonans have died after contracting COVID-19, including 2,149 deaths in Pima County, according to the Feb. 22 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases statewide has declined in recent weeks, with 1,590 coronavirus patients in the hospital as of Feb. 21. That’s less than a third of the number hospitalized at the peak of the winter surge, which reached 5,082 on Jan. 11. The summer peak was 3,517, which was set on July 13, 2020. The subsequent lowest number of hospitalized COVID patients was 468, set on Sept. 27, 2020.
A total of 1,117 people visited emergency rooms on Feb. 21 with COVID symptoms, less than half of 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, 2020; it hit a subsequent low of 653 on Sept. 28, 2020.
WASHINGTON – Arizona continues to be one of the worst states in the nation when it comes to funding higher education, still reeling from deep budget cuts that were made during the recession, according to a new national report.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities studied state funds from the time of the Great Recession in 2008 until 2019, right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
When adjusted for inflation, Arizona spending per student in the state decreased by 54.3%, the largest drop in all 50 states. Louisiana was in second place, with an inflation-adjusted drop of 37.7% in state support.
Arizona also had the second-highest percentage increase in tuition during the period, with its 78% hike trailing only Louisiana’s 96.8%. But Arizona’s increase was the largest in terms of actual dollars, rising $5,224 over 11 years to an average of $11,921 for in-state Arizona students across all public four-year colleges and universities.
David Lujan, director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, called the state’s budget priorities skewed.
“Arizona actually provides more funding each year to our state Department of Corrections to incarcerate people than we provide to all three of our state universities combined,” Lujan said in a conference call to release the report.
Friday, February 19, 2021
After the initial announcement Pima County would only receive 12,500 COVID-19 vaccines next week, the county health department announced they expect to receive another 4,600 doses.
The 17,100 doses of the Moderna vaccine will be coupled with the doses that were delayed this week due to harsh winter weather conditions across the U.S. for a total of 33,400 doses.
Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Cullen said this week’s 16,300 delayed doses are stuck at a FedEx facility in Memphis, Tenn., and will arrive Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
This week, the 17,100 doses allocated to the county from the state are expected to arrive Tuesday or Wednesday, Cullen said.
The county now only has insight into the allocation of Moderna vaccines, as the state health department has taken over all Pfizer allotments.
“When we opened up the allotment tool on Wednesday night, we got allotted 12,500,” Cullen said. “At that point, we thought we were canceling almost 4,800 appointments. Today, lo and behold, out of the blue, we get a text that says, ‘Oh, there's 4,600 more doses coming your way.’”
