The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
For weeks COVID-19 has raged in Arizona like a wildfire in dry buffelgrass. Yet state officials refuse to alter the course of minimal to nonexistent state mitigation procedures. A review of the state’s official pandemic response by the Arizona Public Health Associations shows a disturbing trail of lost or ignored opportunities to control spread over the past year. Official decisions seem to be based solely on business interests rather than the health of Arizonans.
Arizona’s official laissez-faire approach allows high rates of transmission resulting in more deaths and more cases of survivors with long-term COVID disabilities. High caseloads will delay controlling the pandemic and deepen the economic impact. Moreover, high rates of transmission increase the likelihood that additional SARS-CoV-2 variants will emerge. It’s pretty simple — unmitigated spread of the virus means many, many people will be infected, each generating many millions of viruses, therefore increasing the opportunity for new variants to emerge. Some of these variants will have advantages in spreading, some may cause worse disease or sicken more people in younger age groups. The greatest threat posed by the generation of variants, such as those in Brazil and South Africa, is their potential to escape the immunity conferred by the vaccine.
Variants that escape vaccine-induced immunity will undo all the vaccine development to this point. This can be curtailed by strict mitigation. For this reason alone, Arizona should impose strict statewide mitigation procedures (masking, distancing and reduced indoor occupancy) until enough people are vaccinated to control the pandemic by herd immunity. Such measures will prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed and the need for business closures.
The vaccine rollout in Arizona has been much slower than expected because of low supplies, poor estimation of needs, inequitable distribution to counties, little state funding to counties, and appointment websites that are complex to navigate. While COVID-19 cases in Arizona are beginning to decline, Arizona is still ranked as among the highest risks for COVID-19 in the country, and only 5.7% of Arizona’s population has received their first dose of the vaccine. In comparison six states, including neighboring New Mexico, have already vaccinated 10% of their population.
Arizonans find themselves within a public-health emergency because of official choices about the pandemic and vaccine rollout. Much is at stake, as last year’s data bear witness. The mortality rate by all causes in Arizona increased more than 60% during the COVID-19 surges in July and again in December of 2020. The overall mortality rate for 2020 was 23% higher than in 2019 — a total increase of 14,972 deaths. A total of 11,528 of these deaths have been attributed directly to SARS-CoV-2 infection, leaving 3,444 excess deaths that may be indirectly attributed to the pandemic.
These additional deaths are due to hospitals filled to capacity and operating under crisis standards of care. Nonemergency medical decisions have been postponed, and many people have put off seeking medical help they need. In short, these deaths, in addition to many directly related to COVID-19, could have been prevented by stronger statewide mitigation policies. In addition to the number of deaths, far more Arizonans suffer continuing, long-term COVID-19-related disability.
Given the conditions of rapid SARS-CoV-2 spread, the emergence of dangerous variants, and a slow vaccine rollout, it is alarming that state officials have not built upon earlier pandemic policies that controlled case numbers in Arizona. In its absence, every citizen of Arizona should take the responsibility to protect one another by embracing the proven COVID-19 mitigation methods of masking, distancing and avoiding crowds to give vaccination its chance to bring the pandemic to an end.
