COVID-19 numbers are improving, but even a dramatic 45% statewide decrease in cases doesn’t mean it’s time for complacency, health officials say.
“We’re in a pretty rapid period of improvement,” said Dr. Joe Gerald, associate professor with the University of Arizona’s Zuckerman College of Public Health. “Cases and hospitalizations are all getting better, which is good news.”
However, Pima County and Arizona are still experiencing very high transmission of the omicron variant, Gerald said, and so it continues to be important to practice mitigation measures, especially for vulnerable community members.
“We are still four or five times higher than the threshold for high transmission,” he said. “We want to see those case numbers down below 100 per 100,000 residents.”
One of the reasons to continue being cautious and masking is that Pima County has a high social vulnerability index, said Dr. Theresa Cullen, the county’s public health director. Social vulnerability refers to those who live with factors and stresses that affect their health and well-being. This can include living in poverty, having an autoimmune disease or being elderly.
The county’s positivity rate, which ideally should be 3% or lower, was still hovering around 22% as of Friday, Cullen said.
As of Thursday, county Health Department data show, there were roughly 619 cases per 100,000 residents. That rate peaked statewide in mid-January when there were 2,004 cases being diagnosed per 100,000 residents, Gerald reported, with rates highest among those 15 to 24 years old and lowest among those over 65 years old.
During the week that ended Feb. 6, more than 40,000 Arizonans were diagnosed with COVID-19, a 45% decrease from the week before and lower than the state’s peak in January when there were 145,000 cases in a week.
There were 62 COVID-19 deaths recorded in Pima County between Feb. 3 and Feb. 10.
Statewide, weekly COVID-19 deaths likely peaked at 552 deaths during the week ending Dec. 12. However, Gerald predicts weekly totals in the low-400s are going to continue for several more weeks.
So far, at least 26,530 Arizonans have died due to COVID-19.
There is a lag time between when a death occurs and when it is recorded, which means people might have died weeks or even a month or more earlier, while case rates are known within 72 hours and hospital occupancy within 24 hours.
Hospitals are doing better but remain “very, very busy,” Gerald said. Improvements in hospital conditions lag about seven to 10 days behind case counts.
There was a 20% decline in hospitalized COVID-19 patients over the last week, falling below 3,000 to 2,935 Friday. That number is still high, Gerald said, and it’s “still placing a considerable burden on our hospitals.”
Hospitals “have now experienced 181 consecutive days with a combined occupancy of over 2,000 patients (with COVID-19) whereas the summer 2020 and winter 2021 saw 57 and 98 days, respectively,” Gerald wrote in a Feb. 11 report. Arizona has had 75 days in which there were over more than 3,000 COVID patients hospitalized in intensive care and regular beds.
In Pima County, the objective has been to get the number of COVID hospitalizations below 400, Cullen said. Any time the number of cases exceeds 400, she said, “we’re in real trouble.” As of Friday, the county was at 355.
Ideally, Cullen said, they want to get that number down below 100 as soon as possible.
