Monday, December 21, 2020
WASHINGTON – Background checks for gun purchases in Arizona hit their highest level ever in 2020, driven by an unprecedented convergence of a pandemic, a summer of national unrest and a presidential election, experts said.
With a month left to go in the year, 610,911 background checks had been performed in the state through November, well over the 372,912 done in all of 2019, according to FBI data.
The Arizona spike is part of a nationwide increase, said Kelly Drane, research director at Giffords Law Center, a gun-control advocacy group. She estimated that there was a nearly 90% increase in gun sales nationally from March to October this year compared to last year, with early data indicating “a substantial number of these purchases were made by new gun owners.”
Veerachart Murphy said that is what he has seen at Ammo AZ, the Phoenix gun store he owns, where there has been a “huge uptick in first-time buyers.”
“Between the election and COVID and shutdowns and riots – it was enough to get them off the couch and come in and actually make their first purchase,” Murphy said of “people that were kind of maybe on the fence” about buying a gun.
He said his biggest spike in sales came early this year as COVID-19 began dominating the news, with a 400% increase in sales from January to February. He attributes it to anxiety about a possible pandemic-related lockdown.
Sales remained relatively high, he said, until another spike in the summer, when clashes between police and protesters were in the headlines.
That experience tracks the FBI’s data, which shows that Arizona had the highest number of background checks in March, with nearly 83,000, followed by June and July, which had 74,000 and 60,000 background checks, respectively.
Murphy said he has seen similar spikes since he got into the gun business in 2013, usually after active-shooter incidents or mass shootings – and before the 2016 presidential election when sales jumped in anticipation of a win by Democrat Hillary Clinton. Sales tailed off then after gun-friendly President Donald Trump took office.
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Friday, December 18, 2020
The FBI’s Phoenix field office is warning buyers of common scams during the holiday shopping season.
In 2019, 7,795 Arizona consumers claimed a total loss of more than $47 million, according to a press release from the FBI.
The three main scams the FBI warns shoppers of include online shopping, gift card and charity scams.
Some online stores offer reduced brand-name merchandise that is compromised or doesn’t exist. Scammers often use phishing tactics in emails and advertisements, which involve fraudulent links or attachments that if clicked on, can reveal personal information.
The same thing can happen when clicking on fake social media posts that appear to be vouchers or gift cards but rather reveal personal information, according to the release.
Shoppers should also be wary of buying gift cards from outside sources requesting their purchase.
“In these scams, the victims receive either a spoofed email, a spoofed phone call, or a spoofed text from a person in authority requesting the victim purchase multiple gift cards for either personal or business reasons,” the FBI release said. “The gift cards are then used to facilitate the purchase of goods and services which may or may not be legitimate.”
They also caution against websites that only take payment through gift cards or wire transfers, which can give scammers access to “receive illicit funds.”
Banner Health’s Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Marjorie Bessel shared alarming news of the spread of COVID-19 throughout the state at a press conference today despite the hopeful news of the vaccine’s arrival in Arizona.
Bessel remains concerned as the state continues to experience an “exponential growth” of coronavirus with case counts, positivity rates and hospitalizations all increasing.
As the top clinical leader of Arizona’s largest hospital system that’s providing care for almost half of the state’s hospitalized COVID-19 patients, Bessel worries about the continuing surge of the virus, especially during the holiday season.
Within the first two weeks of December, COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state have increased by 93%. This is the same rate experienced throughout the entire month of November, Bessel shared.
According to the chief clinical officer, coronavirus patients comprise 49% of all Banner’s hospitalized patients and 55% of ICU beds. That represents 150% of the hospitals’ peak in a pandemic-free winter season.
Bessel said Banner is also seeing increased deaths from COVID-19, causing the morgues at some hospitals to become so overwhelmed that bodies are being placed in refrigerated trucks.
Closely following guidance from the White House coronavirus task force, Bessel highlighted that Arizona is experiencing a “full resurgence” as it did in its summer surge in cases, but it lacks the mitigation necessary to suppress it.
Bessel expressed support for allowing local authorities to implement mitigation protocols like Tucson and Pima County have done through mandatory curfews and mask mandates.
“We've seen recent actions, as an example, by the mayor of Tucson, Pima County, the mayor of Phoenix and the Phoenix City Council, giving local mayors authority to take mitigation steps and help the state of Arizona's health care system reduce COVID-19 cases in our hospital, which in turn helps all of us by ensuring that the health care we or our families may require will be there in our time of need,” she said.
In a press conference Wednesday, Gov. Doug Ducey made clear he isn’t implementing any further statewide mitigation guidelines as the virus rages through Arizona.
Though African Americans are being hospitalized for COVID-19 at more than triple the rate of white Americans, wariness of the new vaccine is higher in the Black population than in most communities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted communities of color as a “critical population” to vaccinate. But ProPublica found little in the way of concrete action to make sure that happens.
It will be up to states to make sure residents get the vaccine, but ProPublica reviewed the distribution plans of the nine states with the most Black residents and found that many have barely invested in overcoming historic mistrust of the medical establishment and high levels of vaccine hesitancy in the Black community. Few states could articulate specific measures they are taking to address the vaccine skepticism.
And it could be hard to track which populations are getting the vaccine. While the CDC has asked states to report the race and ethnicity of every recipient, along with other demographic information like age and sex, the agency doesn’t appear ready to apply any downward pressure to ensure that such information will be collected.
In state vaccination registries, race and ethnicity fields are simply considered “nice to have,” explained Mitchel Rothholz, chief of governance and state affiliates for the American Pharmacists Association. While other fields are mandatory, such as the patient’s contact information and date of birth, leaving race and ethnicity blank “won’t keep a provider from submitting the data if they don’t have it.”
In the initial stages, vaccines will go to people who are easy to find, like health care workers and nursing home residents. But barriers will increase when distribution moves to the next tier — which includes essential workers, a far larger and more amorphous group. Instead of bringing the vaccine to them, it’s more likely that workers will have to seek out the vaccine, so hesitancy and lack of access will become important factors in who gets the shots and who misses out.
“There are individuals who are required to be on the front line to serve in their jobs but perhaps don’t have equitable access to health care services or have insurance but it’s a challenge to access care,” said Dr. Grace Lee, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is tasked with issuing guidance on the prioritization of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. “We can build equity into our recommendations, but implementation is where the rubber meets the road.”
With more than 7,600 new cases reported today, the number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 442,000 as of Friday, Dec. 18, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County, which reported 1,449 new cases today, has seen 57,250 of the state’s 442,671 confirmed cases.
With 142 new deaths reported today, a total of 7,819 Arizonans had died after contracting COVID-19, including 875 deaths in Pima County, according to the Dec. 18 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases statewide continues to soar as the virus has begun to spread more rapidly, putting stress on Arizona’s hospitals and surpassing July peaks. ADHS reported that as of Dec. 17, 3,931 COVID patients were hospitalized in the state, setting a new record. The previous 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 2,027 people visited emergency rooms on Dec. 17 with COVID symptoms. That number, which hit a new record of 2,166 last week, had previously peaked at 2,008 on July 7; it hit a subsequent low of 653 on Sept. 28.
A total of 915 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on Dec. 17. 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 under curfew
Pima County's voluntary curfew has now become mandatory.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Tuesday to instate a mandatory 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew throughout the county in an attempt to combat Southern Arizona's rising number of coronavirus cases.
Supervisor Steve Christy and outgoing Supervisor Ally Miller, who attended her last board meeting this week, voted against the proposal.
Penalties for a nonessential business found violating curfew range from having their business permit suspended or revoked.
The mandatory curfew will stay in place until coronavirus infection rates drop below 100 per 100,000 people, according to county officials.
The transmission rate in Pima County was 357 people per 100,000 people in the two-week period ending Nov. 29, but Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Cullen expects that number to be significantly higher for the period ending Dec. 13.
The mandatory curfew comes as through the first two weeks of December, COVID-19 cases in the county reached 13,589—2,554 more cases than reported in all of November. Last week saw 70 coronavirus deaths, according to a memorandum from County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.
WASHINGTON – A deadly epidemic has been on the rise this year in Arizona – but this one has drawn scant media attention.
With the world focused on COVID-19, local and national experts say a growing number of opioid overdoses and deaths is being overlooked.
“COVID-19 has taken up a lot of our space, but oftentimes it’s the way of the world,” said Maya Tatum, secretary of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy board of directors. “It takes over people’s minds and people forget.”
And, they fear, that increase may be driven in part by the upheaval the coronavirus has caused to lives and our livelihoods.
According to data collected by the Arizona Department of Health Services, verified opioid overdoses jumped from 375 in February to 479 in March, the height of pandemic-related restrictions on business and travel. At the time, it was the highest monthly number of confirmed overdoses since the state began monthly tracking in June 2017. Confirmed opioid overdoses have since risen to peak at 500 in August, before starting to move back down.
“When you restrict activities, when you isolate people, when people lose their employment, this has major effects on mental health,” said Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, assistant secretary for mental health and substance use with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
“For people who have substance problems, it can make them worse. For people who don’t have substance problems, it may initiate the use of substances,” she said.
It’s not just an Arizona problem: McCance-Katz and others said the same increase in overdoses has been seen nationally this year. And they may continue to increase as days go by, especially with some people being isolated in their homes, she said.
Thursday, December 17, 2020
If you hung out anywhere around Fourth Avenue or downtown Tucson in the past decade, you're most certainly familiar with multi-instrumentalist and KMKR DJ Scott Kerr, a.k.a The Vinyl Wizard.
Kerr, 51, passed away in November.
His friends at KMKR 99.9 FM are celebrating Kerr's beautiful and musical life with a Facebook Live event, featuring DJ sets by DJ Herm Guzman, remembrances from Tucson's creative community and a virtual benefit auction featuring Scott's massive collection of musical gear, instruments, costumes and other mementos. Proceeds will go to the Kerr family and KMKR Radio 99.9 FM.
The event kicks off at 7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 18.
Click here for more information about the auction and celebration of the Vinyl Wizard's life.
