See Dr. Joe Gerald’s Weekly Epidemiology & Hospital Occupancy Report
Arizona continues to experience improving COVID-19 conditions. Even so, risk of infection remains high. Arizona should fall below the 100 cases per 100K residents per week threshold in early March. A few counties may lag behind, so there will be some geographic differences.
The BA.2 Omicron variant is present in low numbers in Arizona (<5%). We can expect it to become the dominant variant over the coming months (not weeks like BA.1). The implication is that it will be a bit more difficult to push down transmission rates. https://pathogen.tgen.org/covidseq-tracker/
With fewer COVID hospital admissions over the last couple of weeks, COVID-19 hospital occupancy has been falling quickly. The census drop will continue as persons with previous COVID infections recover and are discharged or perish. Access to care continues to be constrained by COVID-19 occupancy and the backlog of postponed care.
At least 27,563 Arizonans have lost their lives to COVID-19. Weekly totals in the low-400s are likely for another couple of weeks. A large portion of those deaths could have been prevented if Governor Ducey, former Director Christ and Interim Director Herrington had used their authority to help, rather than impede the response over the last 2 years. Sadly, the opportunity to save those lives has come and gone.
