TUSD Board member Adelita Grijalva, who just won a seat on the Pima County Board of Supervisors last month, announced tonight that she has tested positive for COVID-19.

Grijalva revealed in a press release that she had tested positive on Wednesday, Dec. 9, and is now isolating in Tucson.

Grijalva said she was asymptomatic and learned of her diagnosis via regular testing. She is unaware of when and where she contracted the virus.

Grijalva is the daughter of Congressman Raul Grijalva, who tested positive for the coronavirus in August.

County officials have warned that the coronavirus is widespread in the area and healthcare workers and public health experts are asking people to stay home as much as possible and mask up when they leave their homes when they cannot maintain physical distance from others.

The Arizona Department of Health Services reported 8,076 new cases of COVID-19 today, taking the total number of cases in Arizona since March to 402,589. The state set a new record yesterday as 3,534 people were hospitalized with COVID symptoms. The previous record, 3,517 COVID patients, was set on July 13.

The Pima County Health Department discussed the critical nature of COVID-19 throughout the county at a press conference today after it issued a joint letter signed by 26 representatives from the health department, hospitals and fire districts warning residents of disastrous consequences if the spread of the virus continues at its current rate.

Hospitals across the county have less than 2% of their ICU beds available. Today, they had only seven open ICU beds, Pima County Health Director Dr. Theresa Cullen shared at the press conference.

Pima County Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francisco Garcia said the county’s experiencing “very significant” numbers of deaths similar to those seen in the July surge in cases. In terms of hospitalizations, numbers have far surpassed levels seen in the summer peak. 

Judy Rich, the president and CEO of Tucson Medical Center, said on the outside, the hospital shows serene Christmas lights and often barren parking lots. The parked cars are diminishing as visitors aren’t allowed to visit their sick loved ones, and behind the glowing lights, the hospital’s staff is fighting an unprecedented number of cases while facing high levels of burnout.

“The staff are tired, and they are giving everything that they have. It is imperative that we take this seriously. This is a serious disaster that is invisible to many,” Rich said. “But when it hits you, when it becomes personal, you'll understand it differently. I would just ask you to project to that and take the steps that you need to to stay safe and help our community get through this.”

State unemployment agencies have been demanding recipients repay thousands of dollars, even if the agency made the mistake and the money’s already been spent. After ProPublica investigated the practice, legislators are trying to end it.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash. and Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., have introduced a bill that would shield unemployed workers from having to return federal pandemic unemployment assistance benefits when agencies have mistakenly paid them these funds. The legislation, submitted on Dec. 2, came in the wake of an article by ProPublica in October that exposed the debts and anguish faced by workers who have been overpaid by state unemployment agencies (which administer both state and federal payments), sometimes as a result of the state’s mistakes. The agencies, the article showed, have variously garnished paychecks or taxed refunds to obtain repayment, while others charged interest on the debt.

“I’m grateful to ProPublica for investigating the fallout of poorly managed unemployment benefit programs,” Herrera Beutler said. “I realize state unemployment agencies have been given a tall task, but that’s no excuse for the level of incompetence and unresponsiveness they’ve demonstrated in delivering congressionally approved unemployment benefits.”

As ProPublica reported, states are allowed to grant hardship waivers to individuals who mistakenly receive an overpayment of state unemployment benefits. But the law is different when it comes to benefits paid by the federal government. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, created by the CARES Act in March, bans debt forgiveness. This means that millions of American workers who are self-employed or hold nontraditional work schedules — categories that were not eligible for unemployment benefits until the PUA was established — can be held liable for a mistake made by an unemployment agency.

HR 8812, the Relief for Working Families Act, would change that, allowing states to extend waivers to PUA overpayments in cases where the individual receiving the jobless benefits is not at fault and such repayment would create further financial hardship.

The legislation would ease the plight of people like Ahmad Ghabboun, who was the focus of ProPublica’s article. Ghabboun was a freelance driver for Amazon Flex and Uber in Washington state, and he lost work during the pandemic. He was deemed eligible for aid under PUA and the CARES Act but was told, months later, to repay the state’s Employment Security Department $14,990 after accidentally stating that he could work from home — as a driver, he clearly could not — in one of his weekly online applications for benefits.

With more than nearly 7,000 new cases reported today, the number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 394,000 as of Friday, Dec. 11, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

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Pima County, which reported 866 new cases today, has seen 49,637 of the state’s 394,512 confirmed cases.

With 91 new deaths reported today, a total of 7,245 Arizonans had died after contracting COVID-19, including 776 deaths in Pima County, according to the Dec. 11 report.

The number of hospitalized COVID cases statewide continues to soar upward as the virus has begun to spread more rapidly, putting stress on Arizona’s hospitals and closing in on numbers not seen since July peaks. ADHS reported that as of Dec. 10, 3,482 COVID patients were hospitalized in the state, the highest that number has been since July 14. That’s close to the peak of 3,517 hospitalized COVID patients on July 13; that number hit a subsequent low of 468 on Sept. 27.

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AZDHS

The second wave of hospitalized COVID patients is just about to break a new record.

A total of 2,120 people visited emergency rooms on Dec. 10 with COVID symptoms. That number, which hit a new record yesterday, had previously peaked at 2,008 on July 7; it hit a subsequent low of 653 on Sept. 28.

A total of 809 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on Dec. 10, the highest that number has been since July 26. The number of COVID patients in ICUs peaked at 970 on July 13 and hit a subsequent low of 114 on Sept. 22.

Pima County has seen a dramatic rise in cases in recent weeks, according to an Dec. 4 report from the Pima County Health Department. (Numbers in this report are subject to revision.) For the week ending Nov. 7, 2,119 cases were reported; for the week ending Nov. 14, 2,578 cases were reported; and for the week ending Nov. 21, 3,313 cases were reported, setting a new record for a weekly count.

“In the last week, we've had the most cases we've reported in a week,” Dr. Theresa Cullen, the director of the Pima County Health Department. “We've had the most cases we've ever reported in a day. And as you can see, this number is significantly more than what we had in the summer when we were worried. That's why we need to worry more and more.”