GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) - Arizona has hit a grim milestone in its battle with the new coronavirus as deaths topped 1,000 on Friday and the number of new infections soared to a new high.
The state Department of Health Services reported 16 new deaths, bringing the total to 1,012 since the first death was revealed on March 21. The department said 1,578 new cases were tallied, by far the highest daily count since the outbreak began.
The number of emergency room visits and hospitalized patients also hit records. Hospitals told the department that 713 people were seen in emergency rooms Thursday and 1,234 people were hospitalized.
The number of people confirmed infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, is now at 24,332.
Gov. Doug Ducey allowed his stay-home orders to end May 15. A surge of new cases began about 10 days later - about the time it takes an infected person to develop symptoms.
Ducey didn’t appear overly concerned Thursday, when he said the surge in cases wasn’t unexpected and not yet a trend that merited a reimposition of restrictions. And he noted that no matter what is done, the virus isn’t going away.
“We mourn every death in the state of Arizona,” Ducey said. “Everything we have done since the first emergency order on March 11 and the first executive order to protect people in long-term care has been to reduce the spread of this virus and to save and protect as many lives as possible.”
Health officials in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous that has seen about half the state’s cases, sounded the alarm Friday about a large increase in new cases that can’t be attributed to higher rates of testing.
The county’s executive director for public health, Marcy Flanagan, said the county has seen an average of 500 new cases a day this week, up from about 200 a day previously. And hospitalizations and bed use are rapidly rising, although hospitals aren’t yet in crisis mode.
What is clear, she said, is that with the easing of shotdowns across the state, the amount of spread has taken off. And while hospitals can care for everyone now, if the increase isn’t checked, that may not remain the case.
“I can’t tell you if that is in a week, two weeks, in a month,” she said. “But if individuals follow all the recommendations we’re putting out there, which is social distancing whever possible, wearing a cloth face mask when you go out in public and going out only when necessary, I believe it could take us quite a while to get to a concerning level.”
Officials at Phoenix-based Banner Health, which operates multiple hospitals in Arizona, said they were having to shuttle patients and staff between facilities to avoid overloading intensive care units. Banner is treating about half the virus patients in the state and has 116 patients on ventilators, required to support the most ill patients.
If the current increase in caseloads continue, the chain said it will have to implement its “surge” plan and increase beds by 25% systemwide.
More than 75% of the deaths happened in Arizonans aged 65 and older — many believed to be living in nursing homes or assisted living facilities, although the department refuses to confirm the numbers. Pima County is releasing that information: long-term care facility residents account for 114 of the 191 deaths.
New data provided by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week shows that 371 of the deaths had occurred in nursing homes as of May 31. The data does not include assisted living facilities, which also have been hard hit.
Older people with pre-existing conditions are most vulnerable to the disease.
But younger people have not been unaffected: two of the deaths were in people under age 20, and 49 people in the 20-44 year-old age group have died.
A case tracker updated daily by Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute shows the three-day average number of COVID-19 cases hit a monthly low of 222 on May 25. By Wednesday the three-day average topped 1,000 new cases per day.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some - especially older adults and people with existing health problems - it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
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