#DeltaDucey Wave Continues to Take 200-300 Lives Per Week
View Dr. Joe Gerald’s Full Epidemiology & Hospital Occupancy Report
Arizona continues to experience high levels of community transmission with case rates modestly improving. Test positivity remains stubbornly high reminding us that test capacity, accessibility, and/or uptake is inadequate to meet public health needs. Plateauing among older, highly vaccinated groups serves as a warning that major behavioral shifts or waning immunity could result in future increases.
As of October 10th, new cases were being diagnosed at a rate of 203 cases per 100K residents per week. The rate was decreasing by 33 cases per 100K residents per week.
With waning vaccine efficacy and a potentially short duration of acquired immunity, the unvaccinated cannot “free ride” on high levels of community immunity. This means that persistently high levels of transmission, and more importantly hospitalizations, are possible for an extended time until the supply of unvaccinated, previously uninfected adults is exhausted.
Vaccination remains the most important public health priority to reduce transmission and severe illness; however, mask mandates, restrictions on indoor gatherings, and targeted business mitigations are still needed to reduce/control transmission in the short-run with the primary goal being to avoid overwhelming our critical care facilities and reducing pressure for new vaccine-escape variants.
Recent reports indicate that vaccine immunity to infection falls against Delta by 6 months. Because immunity against severe illness is long lasting, infections among the vaccinated will have less impact providing hope of an end-game where we can (mostly) live with SARS-CoV-2.
▪ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02183-8/fulltext
▪ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114583
▪ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114114
▪ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110362
▪ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00380-5/fulltext
▪ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2113017
COVID-19 hospital occupancy is slowly improving. Nevertheless, occupancy continues to exceed 20% of all beds in the general ward and 25% of beds. Access to care will remain restricted in the face of staff shortages in inpatient and outpatient settings.
Weekly COVID-19 deaths continue to exceed 200 per week. The week ending September 5th has now recorded 300 deaths. Hopefully, this will be the first and only time during this third wave.
