Arizona has become “the hottest hot spot” for COVID-19 as the state experiences the world’s highest rates of cases and record hospital admissions – and health officials warn the numbers will only get worse because of holiday gatherings.
Arizona reported 9,909 new COVID-19 cases and 297 new deaths on Thursday, the highest one-day figure to date, although the state health service noted most were due to the “death certificate matching process”.
Arizona has the worst rates of COVID-19 cases worldwide, according to 91-divoc.com, a COVID-19 tracker. The state currently has the highest seven-day average of COVID-19 infections per capita of any region in the world, based on data from Johns Hopkins University.
According to The COVID Tracking Project, Arizona is also leading the country in hospital admissions. 4,920 hospitalizations had been reported Thursday – the highest number for the fourth consecutive day.
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According to data from the Arizona Department of Health Services, 7% of beds in the intensive care unit were available as of Wednesday.
Banner Health cares for about half of all COVID-19 patients in Arizona, officials said. The situation in the state is “extremely worrying,” said Dr. Marjorie Bessel, chief clinical officer for the hospital system, at a press conference on Wednesday.
“Hospitals in the state of Arizona are currently stretched very thin, despite a significant amount of preparation and work to increase capacity,” said Bessel.
Banner Health canceled elective surgeries at all of its Arizona hospitals on Jan. 1. The occupancy in Arizona is more than 100% of the allowable bed capacity, Bessel said Wednesday, although staff is the system’s main concern.
“We can make beds, we believe,” she said. “It’s the skilled staff, that knowledgeable nurse, that great doctor, that incredibly diligent respiratory therapist, those are the individuals who are stretched very thin right now. And there just aren’t that many of them around the country anymore because they are being deployed. in every state tries to meet the demands of every community. “
Bessel expects hospital admissions to get worse in the coming weeks due to the “stack effect of Thanksgiving activities, Christmas activities and New Year’s Eve”.
Waiting times are another concern, as hospitals may need to keep patients in emergency rooms because a manned ICU or hospital beds are not available.
“The wait can be anywhere from a few hours to more than 24 to 48 hours in the emergency department until we can move someone from the emergency department to a hospital bed,” says Dr. Michael White, Valleywise’s chief clinical officer. Health in Maricopa County, said Wednesday at a news conference.
Calls for limitation – and enforcement
As Arizona has become the ‘hottest hot spot for COVID’, Bessel urges residents to ‘narrow your circle’ to just those in their household, wear a mask with people outside their circle, and ‘stop attending unmasked gatherings even when you feel good. “
“It’s very likely that someone at those meetings has the virus, and they’re spreading it to you,” she said, pointing out that contract tracking isn’t beneficial because COVID-19 is “so uncontrolled in our state.”
“We need each of you to do your part so that hospitals can remain open and accessible to anyone who needs healthcare,” she added.
The health official also called for more mitigating measures, such as a statewide mask mandate, curfew and cessation of indoor dining, and enforcement of existing measures.
The state has not issued a mask mandate, although several cities and counties have. According to a recent survey by the Arizona Republic, Tucson, Flagstaff, or the 12 largest cities in the Phoenix region have not been quoted for disregarding mask orders.
Doug Ducey has also called on local governments to enforce measures.
“Steps have been taken, and if many of these leaders who are reaching out and asking for additional action were to actually enforce and be accountable for the steps that are already in place, we could further reduce their spread and save lives,” Ducey said last month at a press conference.
In a Jan. 3 report obtained by ABC News, the White House Coronavirus Task Force said the post-Arizona holiday season numbers are “deeply concerned” about the spread of COVID-19 in the community, recommending a “combination. of aggressive restriction with further acceleration of vaccinations. “
The Republican governor has not tightened restrictions, despite calls to do so.
“Faced with strict mitigation measures and states that have introduced few or minimal mitigation measures, all experience the same thing,” Ducey spokesman CJ Karamargin told the Associated Press this week. “The mitigating measures that the state of Arizona has put in place early on – they remain in place.
Focus on vaccinations
The state is prioritizing vaccination to combat the pandemic.
“The vaccine will save millions of lives in the future, and that is our focus today,” Ducey said last month.
More than 113,000 people have been vaccinated in Arizona as of Thursday, according to the state health department, including primary care providers and residents and staff of nursing facilities.
The goal is to get about 3.5 million people vaccinated, officials said.
Staff is a concern on vaccination sites, Bessel said. Banner Health operates three vaccination centers across the state, requiring hundreds of staff and volunteers every day. Bessel herself has been transferred several times to the Banner Health vaccination pod at the Arizona State Fairgrounds to administer vaccines, a spokesman told ABC News.
“We stretch as far as possible because we believe that [the] vaccine is how we get out of the pandemic, ”she said.
Volunteers trained by the Arizona National Guard began administering the COVID-19 vaccine and supporting vaccination sites in Arizona on Wednesday, officials said. These include retired medical professionals and those with a medical background.
“When people saw us here, they wanted to get up and volunteer, and that’s exactly what we need,” said Colonel Tom Leaper of the United States Army, the Arizona National Guard state surgeon, KNXV, a subsidiary of Phoenix. ABC. “We were approached by a group of volunteers who said they wanted to help protect their state and their communities, and what they can do to help.”
For now, keeping people at a social distance is “critical”, White said.
“While the vaccine is starting to spread in our community, it will take months before we can reduce our limitations,” he said. “If we don’t continue to do this, we risk overwhelming our clinical units and our hospitals.”
Josh Margolin, Brian Hartman and Eric Strauss of ABC News contributed to this report.