AZ Central: As Trump pushes to reopen schools, Arizona school leaders face more uncertainty. “As President Donald Trump’s administration pushes for schools to reopen on time, a small community in eastern Arizona is reeling from the death of a teacher who contracted COVID-19 after she taught summer school virtually while in the same room as two other teachers. The school district’s superintendent, Jeff Gregorich, said three teachers went above and beyond in taking precautions against the spread of the virus while teaching in the same room, but all three contracted COVID-19.”
Arizona
USA Today: Florida sees worrying spike in coronavirus cases, potential to ‘overwhelm our hospitals’ after reopening
USA Today: Florida sees worrying spike in coronavirus cases, potential to ‘overwhelm our hospitals’ after reopening. “Texas and Arizona were among the first states to take a leap of faith in May by reopening their economies from lockdown orders meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. But in the weeks that followed, new COVID-19 cases began to gradually climb in both states. Then, after bars, gyms, hair and nail salons and other places not conducive to social distancing reopened, new cases skyrocketed. Now both states are seeing a growing number of COVID-19-related deaths as hospitals reach capacity to handle new patients.”
AZ Central: Arizona COVID-19 cases surpass 100,000 as weekslong spikes continue
AZ Central: Arizona COVID-19 cases surpass 100,000 as weekslong spikes continue. “Known cases of COVID-19 in Arizona passed 100,000 on Monday, just over five months since the first case was identified in Maricopa County in late January and just over two weeks since the case count passed 50,000.”
KJZZ: New Program Provides Free Crisis Counseling To Arizonans Impacted By Coronavirus
KJZZ: New Program Provides Free Crisis Counseling To Arizonans Impacted By Coronavirus. “The Resilient Arizona Crisis Counseling program is now available for free to people statewide. It’s being done in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) at the federal level, and the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) at the state level.” This is mostly an audio article, but the text appears to contain all the salient information.
Verify: Contrary to social media claims, there’s no evidence Arizona is ‘double-counting’ positive tests for coronavirus (12 News)
12 News: Verify: Contrary to social media claims, there’s no evidence Arizona is ‘double-counting’ positive tests for coronavirus. “You may have noticed more than a few social media skeptics about Arizona’s soaring coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. They just don’t trust the numbers. We verified whether the state Department of Health Services, the repository of the data, is ‘double-counting’ positive coronavirus tests. On Sunday, Arizona posted a single-day record high of 3,857 cases. Before Gov. Doug Ducey reopened the state six weeks ago, 1 in 20 tests was positive. Today, 1 in every 5 tests are returning as positive, according to DHS.”
Politico: A Sun Belt time bomb threatens Trump’s reelection
Politico: A Sun Belt time bomb threatens Trump’s reelection. “Republican governors in Florida, Arizona and Texas followed Trump’s lead by quickly reopening their states while taking a lax approach to social distancing and mask-wearing. Now each of them is seeing skyrocketing coronavirus caseloads and rising hospitalizations, and Republican leaders are in retreat. It’s hard to overstate the gravity of the situation for Trump: Lose any one of the three states, and his reelection is all but doomed.”
Washington Post: How Arizona ‘lost control of the epidemic’
Washington Post: How Arizona ‘lost control of the epidemic’. “Arizona has emerged as an epicenter of the early summer coronavirus crisis as the outbreak has expanded, flaring across new parts of the country and, notably, infecting more young people. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, is recording as many as 2,000 cases a day, ‘eclipsing the New York City boroughs even on their worst days,’ warned a Wednesday brief by disease trackers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which observed, ‘Arizona has lost control of the epidemic.'”
AP: Nurses, doctors feel strain as virus races through Arizona
AP: Nurses, doctors feel strain as virus races through Arizona. “They saw the ominous photos: Crowded hospitals, exhausted nurses, bodies piling up in morgues. It was far away, in New York, northern Italy and other distant places. Now, after three months of anxiously waiting and preparing, Arizona nurses and doctors are on the front lines as the coronavirus rips through the state, making it one of the world’s hot spots. The trickle of a few virus patients in March became a steady stream two weeks after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey ended a stay-home order in mid-May and allowed most businesses to reopen, and is now a scourge with no end in sight.”
Arizona State University: New ASU mapping tool shows holistic view of water in Arizona
Arizona State University: New ASU mapping tool shows holistic view of water in Arizona. “Water is a critical issue in Arizona, and a new water-mapping tool created by the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University has collected a vast array of maps and data sets to show a wide-ranging view of water in the state. The Arizona Water Blueprint visualizes information on groundwater, rivers, agricultural irrigation, dams, ocean desalination, critical species and other concepts that are important not only to policymakers but also to any Arizonan concerned about water.”
‘I didn’t take this seriously’: Tempe man with COVID-19 says he regrets sharing drinks in bar (AZ Central)
AZ Central: ‘I didn’t take this seriously’: Tempe man with COVID-19 says he regrets sharing drinks in bar. “He was admitted June 15 to Banner Baywood Medical Center with COVID-19 and pneumonia after experiencing body aches, nasal congestion, fatigue, headaches, chills, sweating, shortness of breath, and other symptoms, according to [Jimmy] Flores. Flores is one of the thousands of confirmed new COVID-19 cases in the month since Gov. Doug Ducey lifted the stay-at-home order in Arizona, which saw an increase of a record 3,591 new cases reported Tuesday. Face masks became mandatory across Maricopa County within the last week to help slow the spread of the virus.”
AZ Central: ICU bed use, ER visits hit new highs for Arizona COVID-19 cases
AZ Central: ICU bed use, ER visits hit new highs for Arizona COVID-19 cases. “The state reported 1,014 new cases Monday. More than 1,000 new cases have been reported on 10 of the past 14 days, including on the past six days. ICU beds for patients with suspected and confirmed COVID-19 hit its highest number on Sunday, with 464 patients in the ICU, surpassing Saturday’s 452 patients.”
AZ Central: State health director tells Arizona hospitals to ‘fully activate’ emergency plan
AZ Central: State health director tells Arizona hospitals to ‘fully activate’ emergency plan. “As COVID-19 numbers in Arizona climbed last week, the state health director sent a letter to hospitals urging them to ‘fully activate’ emergency plans. Hospitals are also being asked to prepare for crisis care, and to suspend elective surgeries if they are experiencing a shortage of staff or bed capacity, Dr. Cara Christ, Arizona Department of Health Services director, says in the June 6 letter.”
KTAR: Arizona reports daily record of 1,579 new cases; death count passes 1,000
KTAR: Arizona reports daily record of 1,579 new cases; death count passes 1,000. “The Arizona health department reported 1,579 new coronavirus cases Friday morning, the most ever in a daily update, and the state’s death toll for the pandemic eclipsed 1,000. With 16 additional fatalities, Arizona documented totals stand at 24,332 cases and 1,012 deaths.”
AZ Central: Arizona saw highest single-day ER visits; Yuma sees spike in cases related to COVID-19 over weekend
AZ Central: Arizona saw highest single-day ER visits; Yuma sees spike in cases related to COVID-19 over weekend. “The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients at Yuma Regional Medical Center has tripled over the past two weeks, at least 14 have died, and Arizona emergency room visits related to the new coronavirus pandemic reached a new one-day high over Memorial Day weekend. A spike in cases at the Yuma hospital contributed to record-high levels of hospitalizations and ER visits related to the coronavirus statewide over the weekend.”
BuzzFeed News: Scientists Studying The Coronavirus Say Some States Are Censoring Them
BuzzFeed News: Scientists Studying The Coronavirus Say Some States Are Censoring Them. “Disputes over coronavirus case counts in reopening states like Georgia, Arizona, and Florida are worrying public health experts, who fear public trust in health agencies is being destroyed by moves to silence or obscure unwelcome data. ‘Ultimately this is going to kill people,’ said biostatistics professor Ruth Etzioni of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. ‘People are going to see low numbers from these reports with manipulated numbers, go outside when they should stay in, get ill, and die.'”
