Monday, February 22, 2021
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.
Friday, February 19, 2021
PHOENIX – A House committee has passed a Republican-sponsored bill that would allow Arizona business owners to decide whether to enforce mask mandates for employees and customers, a move supporters say promotes freedom and critics call a threat to health and safety.
“It’s a simple bill – it restores the freedom and the liberties back to the individual, and the individuals that own a business, to make their own decisions,” said newly elected Rep. Joseph Chaplik of Scottsdale, a sponsor of House Bill 2770.
The House Commerce Committee on Tuesday voted 6-4 along party lines in favor of the bill, which runs counter to many city and county government requirements to wear a mask to combat the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Gov. Doug Ducey has not issued a statewide mask requirement but last year allowed local governments to establish such rules.
Chaplik, who spoke while wearing a face shield, referred to emails of support he has received.
With 1,918 new cases reported today, the total number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 804,116 as of Friday, Feb. 19, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County, which reported 211 new cases today, has seen 107,793 of the state’s 802,198 confirmed cases.
With 145 new deaths reported today, a total of 15,421 Arizonans have died after contracting COVID-19, including 2,144 deaths in Pima County, according to the Feb. 19 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases statewide has declined in recent weeks, with 1,738 coronavirus patients in the hospital as of Feb. 18. That’s fewer than half 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.
Thursday, February 18, 2021
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry is asking the Pima County Board of Supervisors to suspend county-sponsored COVID-19 testing after notification that the state will not reimburse the county for most of its testing costs.
At a special board meeting Friday, Huckelberry said he'll ask the board to halt free coronavirus testing as of Feb. 22 to avoid incurring further deficit costs.
In a memo to the board, Huckelberry said the county reported to the state that $47.75 million was spent on PCR COVID-19 testing since April, with more than $10.68 million coming from county funds.
State officials said they could reimburse Pima County for only $1 million, according to an email from Eugene Livar, the chief of the epidemiology and disease control bureau at the Arizona Department of Health Services.
When the state submits its budget for federal approval in mid-March, Livar said ADHS can “reassess the funding available to support Pima County's testing needs,” but they likely won’t be able to “support the entirety of the $40,274,448 need but will likely be able to provide some level of support.”
While initially running the county’s testing operations under the assumption they would be partially 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.”
Pima County currently has several sites offering free COVID-19 testing through partnerships with Arizona State University, the City of Tucson, Accu Reference Labs and Paradigm Labs.
If the Board of Supervisors approves the motion Friday, the free testing will cease across the county.
“This is unfortunate as it was abundantly clear to Pima County that the State allocation was for COVID-19 testing,” Huckelberry wrote in the memo. “At least that was the impression we were left with in reviewing the Federal 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act.”
PHOENIX – A team led by University of Arizona astronomers has discovered the most distant quasar found to date. Researchers hope the quasar, which is more than 13 billion light-years from Earth, will provide answers to how galaxies formed after the big bang.
“It was a relief to find,” said Feige Wang, lead author of the quasar’s research paper and Hubble Fellow at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. “We have been searching for this quasar for almost five years. We knew it was there somewhere.”
To find quasars, team members select celestial objects they believe may be quasars based on data from various imaging surveys. Capturing light spectrum data through a powerful telescope, they analyze it to determine whether the object is a quasar. This new quasar – J0313-1806 – was spotted with the Magellan Baade telescope in Chile in November.
“On that night of the discovery, the (quasar) was one of the last objects that we were going to be able to observe for a while because we couldn’t use the observatory again for another few months,” recalled Xiaohui Fan, co-author of the paper and associate head of the UA department of astronomy. “We didn’t want to miss the chance of observing it because it might be interesting. And, of course, that turned out to be true.”
Fan said the astronomers left the observatory and celebrated with a drink.
The researchers presented their findings at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in mid-January and submitted their research paper for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
With 1,143 new cases reported today, the total number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 802,000 as of Thursday, Feb. 18, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County, which reported 181 new cases today, has seen 107,582 of the state’s 802,198 confirmed cases.
With 213 new deaths reported today, a total of 15,276 Arizonans have died after contracting COVID-19, including 2,119 deaths in Pima County, according to the Feb. 18 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases statewide has declined in recent weeks, with 1,823 coronavirus patients in the hospital as of Feb. 17. That’s fewer than half 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 1,272 people visited emergency rooms on Feb. 17 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, 2020; it hit a subsequent low of 653 on Sept. 28, 2020.
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Pima County residents ages 65 and over will be able to pre-register for COVID-19 vaccine appointments starting 9 a.m., Thursday, the Pima County Health Department announced Tuesday.
Pima County Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francisco Garcia said the announcement comes not because of increased vaccine availability, but to avoid confusion as the new state-run site at the University of Arizona provides vaccines to the 65+ population.
Garcia said the county health department was poised to make the decision to open vaccine appointments to the 65+ crowd next week, but accelerated the announcement so the county’s eligibility requirements will align with the state’s.
“We know that this is a complicated message because, on the one hand, I'm telling you that vaccine supply is restricted. On the other hand, I'm telling you that more people are going to be eligible for that restricted vaccine supply,” Garcia said. “One of the things that we are really, really working hard to mitigate against is the fact that with the opening of the state POD here at the University of Arizona, I am worried that people will start to get confused. And so rather than have different age eligibilities at different locations, we want to have uniform age eligibility across Pima County, even even if it poses some challenges for us.”
PHOENIX – In a downtown parking garage, a health care worker, dressed in protective gear, waits for cars to pull up for drive-thru HIV tests. Inside the building, volunteers assemble packages of at-home tests and condoms to be shipped across the state.
Elsewhere in metro Phoenix, a van travels to neighborhoods whose residents may face higher risk of infection to provide regular HIV testing, while doctors and case managers across the area respond to telehealth appointments by phone and Zoom.
Although face-to-face interactions have been the preferred method for testing and treating people for HIV and supporting them in vulnerable moments, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced local health care providers to get creative and adapt.
Such services as Zoom appointments, along with drive-thru, at-home and mobile testing, epitomize this new normal.
Dr. Ann Khalsa, an HIV specialist with more than 30 years of experience, has been part of the shift. She serves as medical director at Valleywise Community Health Center-McDowell, and spends most days on Zoom and phone calls with patients.
Khalsa said that amid COVID-19 – with so many people “hunkered down” and not prioritizing other medical needs – her clinic has seen a 30% decrease in people getting tested for HIV and linked to treatment.
However, some of the changes in delivery of care are helping, she added, and are likely here to stay.
Monday, February 15, 2021
With the fourth week in a row of declining COVID-19 cases in Pima County, Arizona has evolved from a state of “crisis” to one of “elevated risk,” according to Dr. Joe Gerald, a University of Arizona professor who creates weekly coronavirus epidemiology reports based on Arizona Department of Health Services data.
According to Gerald’s latest report, the week ending Feb. 7 saw a 35% decrease in coronavirus cases from the week prior.
The amount of COVID-19 patients in the state’s general ward beds decreased by 25% the week of Feb. 12 from the week before, while ICU bed usage dropped 17%, according to Gerald.
“With continued improvements being forecast over the next 4 weeks, hospital capacity is adequate to meet Arizona’s most critical needs,” the professor wrote in the report. “Nevertheless, it will be many months before the backlog of non-COVID care can be fully addressed.”
In Pima County, the week ending Feb. 7 saw a 33% drop from the previous week, Gerald reports.
Furthermore, for the first time in 2021, two of the indicators on Pima County’s COVID-19 progress report, which tracks key epidemiological factors to make recommendations to business schools, have improved.
Adequate hospital capacity and timely case investigation metrics have moved from the “not met” to “progress” category.
Timely case investigation tracks how long it takes for the county’s case investigators to reach an individual who’s tested positive COVID-19 after they’re diagnosed.
Cases over two consecutive weeks, percent positivity for the virus and the predominance of COVID-19 like illness remain in the “criteria not met” category.
Although hospitals are seeing a slight reprieve, they remain under pressure, according to Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Cullen.
