Wednesday, May 20, 2020
The Board of Supervisors will meet again on Thursday, May 21, to finalize an easing of the new restrictions.
The move to change the new regulations came after complaints from restaurant owners and an investigation by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who was asked to look into the situation by three state lawmakers.
The new regulations were first created last week during an emergency meeting last Wednesday, May 13. The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to enact 15 of the 17 new guidelines recommended by the county’s Back to Business Bars and Restaurants Task Force as temporary regulations to the county health code. Supervisors Steve Christy and Ally Miller voted against the new rules.
State Sen. Vince Leach and state Reps. Mark Finchem and Bret Roberts filed a complaint with Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office on Friday, May 15 calling for an investigation into Pima County’s actions. The state lawmakers say the county’s proclamation attempts to supersede Gov. Ducey’s May 12 executive order allowing dine-in service at Arizona restaurants as long as they follow the state’s recommended guidelines.
The University of Arizona has launched a new webinar series aimed at analyzing the ways COVID-19 has impacted the university, the state, and the entire world, and what our post-pandemic future might look like.
In the first installment of the series, professors from the Eller College of Management discussed the varying impacts on the local and national economy and highlighted how some industries are affected differently than others.
By April, more than 20 million jobs were lost nationwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, more than 400,000 Arizonans were filing for unemployment benefits.
George Hammond, director of the Economic and Business Research Center at Eller, said Arizona unemployment numbers tend to reflect the national average. But restaurants, travel, tourism, retail stores, salons, and childcare services are the ones who are majorly affected by the pandemic.
“The rest of the economy is going to feel the ripple effects as those shocks spread through the economy,” Hammond said. “So we’ve experienced a big hit. The big question now is what will the recovery be like?”
He explained that economists have drawn up a variety of predictions for the recovery from COVID-19. The most optimistic follow a “V” shaped curve, where businesses are able to bounce back as quickly as they fell. The most pessimistic follows a “W” shaped curve, where economic impacts are felt well into the future, and recovery is shaky.
Hammond predicts a “U” shaped recovery for Arizona.
Tags: COVID19 , Coronavirus , University of Arizona , UA , Eller , Webinar , Price Fishback , George Hammond , Economy , Recovery , Image
Pima County had 1,903 confirmed cases.
The coronavirus had killed 747 people statewide, including 167 in Pima County, according to the report.
In Maricopa County, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases had risen to 7,644.
Because symptoms can take as long as two weeks to appear after exposure to the virus (while some people can remain entirely asymptomatic), health officials continue to urge the public to avoid unnecessary trips and gatherings of more than 10 people, especially if you have underlying health conditions, and have advised people to cover their faces with masks in public.
Arizona's stay-at-home order expired at the end of Friday, May 15. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced last week that gyms, pools and movie theaters can now reopen. Ducey also invited major-league sports to play in Arizona, although he said it would have to be without fans in the audience.
Ducey gave the green light for for restaurants and bars that offer food service to reopen last week. Restrictions were previously lifted on stores, barber shops and salons.
Ducey said he hoped that schools would be able to reopen in the fall but was yet not ready to make that call.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said last week that Ducey was moving forward too quickly on reopening the state.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
- The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Arizona reached 14,566, with the death toll now topping 700 as of Tuesday, May 19, according to the morning report from the Arizona Department of Health Services.
- Following last week’s sold-out performance by The Tributaries, the Gaslight Music Hall in Oro Valley is expanding this week’s drive-in concert to two shows.
- If you have a child at home who is waiting to break out of isolation and have a little fun this summer, look no further than the Tucson Museum of Art’s art camp—registration for which is now open.
- Downtown Tucson Partnership’s Clean and Safe Team are COVID-19-free after undergoing tests provided by El Rio Health, the organization announced Tuesday.
- As the nation remains focused on COVID-19, the U.S. government has aggressively begun to rush the deportations of some of the most vulnerable migrant children in its care.
- Contact tracing is a public health strategy that has been used successfully to combat infectious disease outbreaks across the globe, from the 1930s, when it helped get rampant syphilis under control in the United States, to the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
I want you to mentally prepare yourself for a phone call that you could receive sometime over the course of this pandemic: in the next few months or year.
Your phone might ring, and when you pick it up, you may hear someone say, “Hi, I’m calling from the health department.” After verifying your identity, the person may say something like, “I’m afraid we have information that you were in close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.”
The person calling is what’s known as a contact tracer. As most states begin to lift restrictions on movement and people once more start to eat in restaurants, work in offices and get on public transit, these phone calls will become more frequent. State public health departments are hiring thousands of these workers, and experts are calling for more than 100,000 contact tracers to be deployed across America.
I can only imagine how I would feel if I got a call telling me that I had been in close contact with a COVID-19 patient — shocked, a little scared and possibly a bit in denial. But after spending a week talking to contact tracing experts across the country, and taking an online course as well, I think I’d also feel one more thing: empowered. Here’s why.
Contact Tracing Will Help Us Reopen Safely
This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans.
The girls, 8 and 11, were alone in a rented room in a dangerous Mexican city bordering Texas. Their father had been attacked and abandoned on the side of a road and they didn’t know where he was.
For seven months the children had waited with their dad in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, to ask U.S. authorities for asylum. They had fled their home after death threats from local gang members and no help from police. They had also been victims of sexual assault.
But in March, after their father suddenly didn’t return from his construction job, a neighbor took the children to the international bridge. He said they should present themselves to U.S. immigration authorities, who would reunite the girls with their mother in Houston.
“Mami,” the eldest panicked in a brief call immigration agents made to the mother. “Daddy didn’t come home.”
The mother, at work in Houston, said she nearly fainted.
Before the coronavirus pandemic upended everything, the children likely would have spent a few weeks in the care of a U.S. shelter until they were released to their mother to pursue their asylum cases.
Downtown Tucson Partnership’s Clean and Safe Team are COVID-19-free after undergoing tests provided by El Rio Health, the organization announced Tuesday.
All 23 members of the group were tested last Thursday. The team, affectionately known as the “Purple People,” provides security and maintenance services to the Business Improvement District downtown. The group also acts as ambassadors to local businesses and visitors. During COVID-19, the team has also worked to remind people of social distancing procedures and educate homeless individuals about available resources.
“We’re so grateful to El Rio Health and all the amazing health-care workers, first responders, and other essential personnel who bravely provide COVID-19 testing and immediate treatment for those with the virus,” said Kathleen Eriksen, DTP President and CEO, in a statement. “El Rio Health has given our team peace of mind so we can continue caring for downtown, creating a welcoming, safe, and beautiful environment for Tucsonans when they are ready to return.”
He is recovering in a local hospital and being treated for possible dehydration, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
ORIGINAL STORY:
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is looking for any information leading to the location of Martin Valenzuela, 60, who was last seen around noon on Monday near the 7000 block of North Antoinetta— Near West Ina and North Oracle roads.
Valenzuela is listed at 6 feet 2 inches, weighing 220 pounds and wearing a white shorts and khaki pants. He has brown eyes and black hair. Valenzuela is also nonverbal, according to PCSD.
Anyone with information on Valenzuela’s whereabouts is asked to immediately call 911.
Tags: missing , person , vulnerable , sheriff , Image
The camp is designed for young artists aged 5 to 13 and is inspired by the permanent collections and exhibitions located at the museum. While at camp, children will “discover new places and diverse cultures through visits to the galleries and historic buildings, express their creativity and produce original works of art,” according to the museum.
Activities include painting, printmaking, collage, and guided conversations about art and personal life stories translated through visual mediums. The camp takes place across eight weekly sessions, beginning June 1 through July 31, with a one-week break at the end of June.
The museum is taking extra precautions this year due to COVID-19. Each session will be limited to 36 campers in four different groups, and each session will only offer full-day programming. There will be no drop-in participation allowed, all families must register to send a child to camp.
In addition to size changes, the museum announced a series of health and safety precautions:
