Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Visitors to Downtown Tucson will again hear children laughing and playing when the Children's Museum Tucson reopens on March 25.
While the Museum may have been closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Executive Director Hilary Van Alsburg said that the staff has been busy working on activities, exhibits and attractions.
“We have spent the past year developing new programs, expanding our exhibits and gearing up for reopening - we are so ready for families to come back to play. Our focus is on fun engagement and welcoming families back to in-person experiences safely.”The Museum, 200 S. Sixth Ave., will be limited to one-third capacity, with timed admission at 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m., noon, 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Admission is $9 per person and visitors are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance at ChildrensMuseumTucson.org. Discounts are available for military and visitors on public assistance.
Anyone 5 and older will be required to wear masks inside the Museum. The extended outdoor space and visitor limit ensure there is ample room for social distancing while allowing children to explore and play.
The Museum's other location, 11015 N. Oracle Road, will reopen on April 1. They've added a new train table, updated Toddler Town and new outdoor play activities. This Early Childhood Education-focused space will be open from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursday-Sunday with limited capacity. Admission is $7 per person with advance tickets available online and discounts available.
PHOENIX – When Bryce Drew was hired to replace Dan Majerle as coach at Grand Canyon last March, the Lopes were not in a great spot.
The 2019-20 season saw GCU suffer its worst season since becoming a Division I basketball school in 2013, a 13-17 overall record and 8-8 mark in the Western Athletic Conference. Majerle, who guided the program through its transition to Division I and is beloved by Phoenix Suns fans, was fired because of the poor results.
That opened the door for Drew, whose last coaching stop hadn’t gone any better than Majerle’s final season at GCU. In Drew’s final season at Vanderbilt in 2018-19, the Commodores won only nine games and were 0-18 in conference play. He was fired at season’s end.
But Drew’s first season at Grand Canyon provided important firsts, and some big surprises.
The Lopes won their first WAC Tournament title and with it, the school’s first NCAA Tournament bid. And the Lopes did it in a season in which their in-state foes Arizona State (which began the year as a Top 25 team) and Arizona (a staple in March Madness) surprisingly missed the Big Dance entirely.
“It’s been a tough year. Just a lot of things thrown at us this year,” ASU coach Bobby Hurley said.
It all seems fitting in such a strange season, not just for Arizona teams but around the college basketball world.
With 497 new cases reported today, the total number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases closed in on 834,000 as of Tuesday, March 16, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County, which reported 56 new cases today, has seen 111,400 of the state’s 833,878 confirmed cases.
With 21 new deaths reported this morning, a total of 16,574 Arizonans have died after contracting COVID-19, including 2,304 deaths in Pima County, according to the March 15 report.
A total of 743 coronavirus patients were in the hospital as of March 15. That’s roughly 15% 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 837 people visited emergency rooms with COVID-like symptoms ron March 15. That number represents 36% 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 – The Senate Monday confirmed New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland as the next Interior secretary, a historic vote that makes her the first Native American to head a Cabinet agency.
The confirmation came over the objection of Senate Republicans, particularly those representing Western states dependent on fossil fuels, who have called Haaland an environmental extremist.
But Democrats – and four Republicans who voted to confirm the nomination – pointed to Haaland’s reputation as a bipartisan House member as well as the historic nature of her nomination.
“The confirmation of Deb Haaland is amazing,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after the 51-40 confirmation vote. “It creates a government that more embodies the full richness and diversity of this country.”
Critics for weeks had been attacking Haaland’s record in the House, where she was a member of the Natural Resources Committee and took stands in support of the Green New Deal and against the Keystone XL Pipeline.
During a confirmation hearing last month, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., one of the most vocal opponents of Haaland’s nomination, questioned her on her views on fossil fuels and their impact on state economies.
“We should not undermine America’s energy production, and we should not hurt our own economy,” Barrasso said then.
Other GOP senators also criticized what they called Haaland’s “radical” views that they said are “squarely at odds with the mission of the Department of the Interior and outside of the mainstream.” When they tried to pin her down on issues, Haaland repeatedly said she would merely carry out White House policy, leading some senators to charge that the two-term Democrat is unprepared to head Interior.
Monday, March 15, 2021
The University of Arizona will move to Stage 3 during the week of March 29, allowing in-person classes and flex in-person classes of up to 100 students, UA President Dr. Robert C Robbins announced in a briefing this morning.
On Feb 22, the university moved to Stage 2, offering in-person learning to courses with 50 or fewer students. They will continue in Stage 2 for the next two weeks.
On campus, the rate of positivity remains low, with fewer than 0.2 percent of the more than 13,000 tests in the past 10 days.
In Pima County on the week of Feb. 21, the rate of positivity dropped to 5.3 percent, nearing the goal of 5 percent for classification of minimal transmission. For the same week, the county had 78 cases of COVID per 100,000 residents, while 3 percent of reported hospital visits were for COVID-like illnesses.
While these metrics continue to decline, a total of 39 cases of the UK variant have appeared in Arizona. On March 12, the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), the Yuma County Public Health Services District and Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) reported three cases of the Brazilian variant (P.1.).
Robbins said with the help of their expert team, they feel confident that it’s safe to move forward.
“Despite the variance, the incidence and prevalence of COVID-19 continues to be low, particularly on the campus,” said Robbins. “There's not been any major outbreaks on the campus throughout, over a year of this.”
Robbins adds that they feel especially confident as vaccination efforts increase.
The University of Arizona state POD administered 15,354 vaccines the past week of March 8 to March 14, with a total of 63,745 vaccines since January.
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WASHINGTON – Arizona health officials said the state is already on track to meet President Joe Biden’s challenge of allowing all adults to register for COVID-19 vaccinations by May 1.
The directive came Thursday night, the anniversary of the declaration of a COVID-19 pandemic, during Biden’s first nationally televised address as president. He mourned the loss of more than a half-million Americans to the disease but also painted an optimistic picture of the future – including his call for all states to throw open vaccine eligibility by May 1.
“Let me be clear: That doesn’t mean everyone’s going to have that shot immediately, but it means you’ll be able to get in line beginning May 1,” Biden said.
It is unclear what authority Biden has to enforce a deadline, but the director of the Arizona Department of Health Services on Friday called May 1 “a very doable timeline.”
Dr. Cara Christ, the health department director, said that counties are moving at their own pace but that all are currently expected to open eligibility to those 16 years and older by May.
To date, counties have limited registration to phases, with older, ailing and essential workers getting first crack. As of Friday, four counties were administering vaccines to people 65 and older, while nine more had lowered the threshold to people 55 and older.
Two counties, Gila and Greenlee, have already started allowing anyone older than 16 to register for a shot.
With 638 new cases reported today, the total number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 833,000 as of Monday, March 15, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County, which reported 137 new cases today, has seen 111,344 of the state’s 833,381 confirmed cases.
With no new deaths reported this morning, a total of 16,553 Arizonans have died after contracting COVID-19, including 2,300 deaths in Pima County, according to the March 15 report.
A total of 716 coronavirus patients were in the hospital as of March 11 That’s roughly 14% 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.
The number of people visiting emergency rooms with COVID-like dropped to 834 on March 14. That number represents 36 percent 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.
A total of 210 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on March 11, which is roughly 18% of the record 1,183 ICU patients set on Jan. 11. The summer’s record number of patients in ICU beds was 970, set on July 13, 2020. The subsequent low was 114 on Sept. 22, 2020.
Cases continue decline
Arizona has seen eight straight weeks of decline in COVID cases through the week ending March 7, which saw 5,721 new confirmed COVID cases. That was a 17% drop from the previous week, according to Dr. Joe Gerald, an epidemiologist and associate professor in the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health.
Gerald, who has been tracking the spread of the virus with weekly reports for a year, said the state had moved from high risk to substantial risk and hospital capacity was low enough to meet the state’s needs. New cases had fallen to 79 per 100,000 residents and PCR testing had dropped to 9%, putting it in the 5% to 10% zone for “optimal public health practice,” according to Gerald.
Gerald said those with high risk for COVID complications, such as the elderly or those with preexisting conditions, should continue to stay home as much as possible until they are fully vaccinated. Everyone else should continue wearing masks, washing their hands and keeping six feet of distance from people outside their household.
However, some doctors are still urging more caution.
Phoenix endocrinologist Dr. Ricardo Correa, Tucson family medicine specialist Dr. Cadey Harrel and Glendale obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Dionne Mills spoke out against loosening restrictions in Arizona at a press conference last week.
