What Ducey can do to address pandemic

Gov. Doug Ducey has made it clear: He isn’t about to consider any new restrictions to stem COVID-19 spread in Arizona, even if the state has higher death and new case rates than anywhere in the nation.

But that doesn’t mean he should remain hands off. Here are three other things Ducey can — and should — do immediately:

1. Shore up testing (again)

It’s estimated that labs across the state can handle about 80,000 tests a day — a vast improvement from the summer, when demand overwhelmed capacity and it was taking days, even weeks, to get results.

Yet, last week, based on state reported data, we conducted an average of 45,000 diagnostic tests each day. That may be an undercount, and it’s more than we were doing in the summer.

Then again, because at least 50% of new COVID-19 infections are thought to come from people who are contagious but not symptomatic, the best way to identify who’s sick and get them isolated before they unwittingly expose others is through ample, convenient testing.

Dr. Joshua LaBear, who heads Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute and its COVID-19 response, says we should be conducting 80,000 to 100,000 tests a day, given how rampant spread is and how high our positivity rates are (on some days, 4 to 6 in 10 tests are coming back positive).

Yet while ASU regularly has unfilled appointments for its free saliva tests, another major provider of free tests — Embry Women’s Health — says it may have to close sites because it can’t pencil out the costs with insurance reimbursements and the public funding it has received.

That suggests two problems: We’re not repeating it nearly enough that Arizona has this resource available. And the last thing we need now is to lose testing capacity — particularly free tests that anyone can get for any reason.

Let’s make testing even more convienent, pushing more free, regular testing to places like schools and businesses, and tout the heck out of it.

2. Fund genomic sequencing

None of the most concerning COVID-19 variants have officially been found in Arizona, but that’s not surprising, considering how woefully few samples have been genomically sequenced since November. And most of those were sent out of state, even though we have the equipment and expertise in Arizona to sequence thousands more.

That must change. The Translational Genomics Research Institute is renowned for this work and helped sequence thousands of samples for the state at the beginning of the pandemic. But funding for the work fell away during the summer surge as other priorities emerged.

It should be a priority again, because while there’s a lot we don’t yet know about the UK, South African and Brazilian variants, we can be certain that the virus will continue to mutate. Even if those variants never take hold here, others could easily arise that are even more transmissible or that may not effectively respond to approved vaccines.

We need to know what’s here to properly inform our public response.

Dr. David Engelthaler, who co-directs the TGen North lab, says Arizona already has the capacity, through his group and the Arizona COVID-19 Genomics Union that includes experts from state universities, to sequence 5% of samples. That’s far more than we’re doing nationally and enough to get a good grasp on how the virus is moving through Arizona.

Ducey should renew — and commit to sustain — funding for this effort.

3. Don’t waste your bully pulpit

During the summer spike, Ducey was hosting news conferences weekly. They could be bruising. But those briefings were an important outlet to share how the state was responding, why it was taking action (or not), and what people could do to lower their risk of contracting this disease.

Community spread is markedly worse now. Yet Ducey hasn’t hosted a news conference since December, and he has kept a low profile since defending his COVID-19 response in his State of the State address two weeks ago.

Cara Christ, the state health department director, has been hosting weekly briefings, but they don’t get anywhere near the attention or viewership of Ducey’s events. Obviously. He’s the governor. Right or wrong, that carries more weight.

Ducey is persona non grata in many circles. Some lawmakers are trying to strip him of power. He’s disliked by those who think his COVID-19 response is too anemic and by those who think it’s overbearing. But that doesn’t absolve his duty to more clearly explain what’s happening, particularly on the vaccine front.

It’s not fair to characterize vaccines as our ticket back to a normal life and then not regularly explain what the state is doing (and what is out of its control) to speed more shots in arms. There is so much confusion. The information void is doing no one any favors.

If Ducey wants the medical community to do most of the talking on that, fine. Lend them your bully pulpit.

Right now, this key resource is going to waste.