Dr. Joseph Varon will be attending the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) at United Memorial Medical Center on December 29, 2020 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Go Nakamura / Getty Images)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information about the coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond for December 30, 2020.
PHOENIX – Health officials in Arizona reported 5,267 new coronavirus cases and 78 additional deaths on Wednesday.
The state’s documented totals have risen to 512,489 COVID-19 infections and 8,718 fatalities, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services dashboard.
Multiple COVID-19 statistics in Arizona were at or near pandemic highs.
The number of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 hospital patients in Arizona rose to a record 4,526 on Tuesday, a 97% increase since Thanksgiving Day.
The number of COVID-19 patients in state IC beds rose to 1,076 on Tuesday, the sixth consecutive day by a record high.
Ventilator use and emergency room visits by confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients also hit record highs on Tuesday.
Statewide, suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients occupied 53% of all hospital beds and 61% of all IC beds, both records.
Overall, the hospital beds were 91% and the IC beds were 90% full.
The emergence of COVID-19 patients is shrinking the space that is left for other patients in Arizona hospitals. Only 39% of all patients admitted were non-COVID on Tuesday, the second lowest rate in the pandemic. For IC beds, 29% was non-COVID, the lowest percentage recorded.
Arizona’s weekly percent positivity for COVID-19 diagnostic tests, an indicator of how much the virus is spreading in the community, was 22% through 113,233 tests for last week. If it stays that way, the record of 21% will be broken from the week of June 28.
The percentage of positivity is up to 27% this week through 15,433 tests.
Official positivity rates are based on when the samples are taken, not when they are reported, so the rate for the past few weeks may fluctuate as labs are testing and the results are documented by the state.
The seven-day moving average for the health department’s newly reported cases was 5,715.29 for Tuesday, the lowest since Dec. 7, according to tracking by The Associated Press.
The seven-day mean of newly reported COVID-19 deaths rose to 73.57 for Tuesday, rising for the second consecutive day after a five-day series of declines.
The state updates current case, death, and test data daily after the state receives and confirms statistics, which can delay several days or more. They do not reflect actual activity for the past 24 hours.
The hospital admission data posted each morning is electronically reported the night before by 100 hospitals across the state as required under executive order.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, does not affect some people and is severely disabling or fatal to others. Infected people without symptoms – including but not limited to a cough, fever, and difficulty breathing – can spread the virus.
Information on test sites can be found on the website of the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Below are Wednesday’s latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic from around the state, country and world:
- Britain approved an easy-to-handle coronavirus vaccine and decided to increase the time between doses so that more people can get some level of protection more quickly as infections increase.
- According to research from Johns Hopkins University, there were approximately 82.11 million COVID-19 cases and 1.79 million deaths on Wednesday morning worldwide. The figures for the US were about 19.52 million cases and 338,000 deaths.