Arizona total:
State now exceeds 732,000 COVID-19 cases.
Exactly one year after Arizona announced its first confirmed case of COVID-19, the state on Tuesday reported 4,748 new cases and 209 new known deaths and continued to rank highest nationwide for its weekly COVID-19 case and death rates.
In the year since the first case, a total of 732,643 COVID-19 cases have been identified in Arizona. As of Tuesday, 12,448 Arizonans are known to have died from the disease, according to the data dashboard from the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Arizona’s seven-day, new-case average ranked first among all states on Monday after ranking first and second for much of January, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID Data Tracker.
Arizona’s rate of new positive cases over the last seven days was 95.6 cases per 100,000 people, per the CDC. The U.S. average for new cases is 50.7 cases per 100,000 people.
The state’s average daily COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people over the past seven days also ranked first in the nation as of Monday, per the CDC.
Arizona on Friday surpassed 12,000 known deaths from the virus, just one week after it passed 11,000, which came six days after the state reported 10,000 deaths. Arizona’s first known death from the disease occurred in mid-March.
Many of the deaths occurred days or weeks prior, due to reporting delays and death certificate matching.
The state reported more than 17,200 new cases on Jan. 3, the highest number of new COVID-19 cases reported in a single day since the pandemic began, toppling the state’s previous record from Dec. 8 by nearly 5,000 cases. The record followed the Christmas and New Year’s holiday weekends.
The Arizona data dashboard shows 91% of all ICU beds and 90% of all inpatient beds in the state were in use Sunday, with 57% of ICU beds and 49% of non-ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients. Statewide, 158 ICU beds and 844 non-ICU beds were available.
Hospitalizations for the disease have been dropping slightly over the last one to two weeks, but remain at very high levels.
The number of patients hospitalized in Arizona for known or suspected COVID-19 cases was at 4,221 on Monday, below the record 5,082 inpatients on Jan. 11. By comparison, the highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in a single day during the summer surge was 3,517 on July 13.
The number of patients with suspected or known COVID-19 in ICUs across Arizona was at 1,028 on Monday, below the record high of 1,183 on Jan. 11. During the summer surge in mid-July, ICU beds in use for COVID-19 peaked at 970.
Arizonans with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 on ventilators tallied 687 on Monday, below the record-high 821 reached on Jan. 13. During the summer surge, July 16 was the peak day for ventilator use, with 687 patients.
Monday saw 1,734 patients in the emergency room for COVID-19, below the Dec. 29 single-day record of 2,341 positive or suspected COVID-19 patients seen in emergency departments across the state.
New cases in Arizona have eclipsed 5,000 for 27 of the past 30 days.
Percent positivity, which refers to the percent of COVID-19 diagnostic tests that are positive, is still near a peak high, which many health experts consider an early indicator of a spike in illnesses.
Last week, Arizona’s percent positivity stood at 19%. For the week prior to that, it was 20%, according to the state, which has a unique way of calculating percent positivity. Percent positivity was between 4% and 6% for much of August, September and October, according to state data.
Johns Hopkins University calculates Arizona’s seven-day moving average of percent positives at 13.5% as of Tuesday. It shows the state’s percent positivity peaked at 24.2% last month.
A positivity rate of 5% is considered a good benchmark that the spread of the disease is under control.
Arizona began its first COVID-19 vaccinations for Phase 1A the week of Dec. 14, but the process has moved slowly. Registration is open in multiple counties for priority Phase 1B individuals and opened in some places for those 65 and older this week. Gov. Doug Ducey said the vaccine will be free for anyone. Reported cases in Arizona: 732,643 Reported deaths in Arizona: 12,448