View This Week’s Epidemiology & Hospital Resource Report
Arizona is in Contingency Standards of Care in our hospital system, with some areas in Crisis Standards of Care. Another all-time low for hospital bed availability was set this week at 392 theoretically available beds. However, any hospital administrator will tell you that a “licensed bed” is NOT a “staffed bed”. Because ADHS uses ‘licensed beds’ as the denominator for all of their reports they are artificially inflating bed availability.
I talked with 3 hospital administrators this week and each said that they are only able to actually staff 80% of their licensed beds. What that means is that Arizona is actually at closer to 120% of capacity rather than what ADHS reports (92%).
Seven-hundred fifteen (715, 40%) of Arizona’s 1770 ICU beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients, a 9% increase from last week’s 656 occupied beds. An additional 86 (5%) ICU beds remained available for use. Another all-time low for ICU availability was set this week at 78 beds.
AZPHA Blog Post: How Will Doctors & Hospitals Allocate Treatement Now that Arizona Is In Crisis Standards of Care?
The Delta/Ducey wave has seen 119 days with a combined occupancy >2000 patients whereas the summer 2020 and winter 2021 waves saw 57 and 98 days, respectively. We have now had >3000 combined occupancy for 23 days whereas the summer 2020 and winter 2021 waves saw 35 and 78 days, respectively.
Transmission among working-age adults and seniors continues to increase. However, transmission among children has generally declined over the past two weeks presumably because of holiday break and reduction of school exposures.
Arizona has been experiencing >200 COVID-19 deaths per week since August 22nd; and, beginning the week ending November 14th there have been >300 deaths a week. So far, 22,947 Arizonans have lost their lives to COVID-19 making it Arizona’s leading cause of death, the only state to achieve such a dubious distinction
Editorial Note: Other governors are implementing measures to mitigate spread in light of even tight hospital capacity (ours is overwhelmed already and getting worse). For example, NY Governor Hochul Announced Major Action to Address Winter Surge and Prevent Business Disruption as COVID-19 Cases and Hospitalizations Rise Statewide. Sadly, Governor Ducey couldn’t care less and has no intention of doing anything whatsoever.
