As for the COVID-19 pandemic, few parts of the country will look to California – with its record-breaking infections, cluttered hospitals and vaccine disruption – better off.
Then there’s Arizona.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the condition of 7.2 million is now the worst rate for infections in the country. Hospitals are filling up, with barely 150 beds for intensive care units available around the world. Rural areas, including the affluent Yuma, use flying patients to Phoenix. The number of residents being tested is among the ten lowest in America.
As the mask-and-shut-off strategy ruled large parts of California to stem a winter spike from the virus, the more politically conservative neighbor in the east doubled on a completely different approach, refusing to take masking measures in rejecting the entire country, allowing indoor dining and pubs, and reversing a decision to cancel this month’s high school sports.
For a virus that depends on people breathing close together to spread, Arizona has “created the perfect climate,” said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Assn. ‘This is a recipe for disaster. It was California that was the hottest spot. But we did nothing to stop the boom. Now, that’s us. ‘
So much so that a limited number of appointments at the two state-run vaccination sites were snatched up within hours this week and are now fully booked for February.
Scenes of the dark winter of the pandemic have become known in California since many of the state went through the strictest closure measures last year: Late night sirens in empty streets while ambulances rush to hospitals that have been overbooked. Lines at grocery stores under capital caps. Close restaurants and gyms. Zoom schooling. Delay in the distribution of vaccines.
A similar sense of foreboding unfolded in Yuma County, Arizona, where migrant workers and farm workers were particularly hard hit in what is known as the country’s salad bowl. About 20% of the tests there come back positive, compared to 14% in the state. During the pandemic, about 1 in 6 residents of the region became infected. Nurses from the military reserve are now flying in to help struggling health workers.
But in Phoenix and other cities, life goes on as if the virus can be eradicated by swing and pure defiance.
This week, a concert hall in downtown Phoenix where more than 100 people stood shoulder to shoulder for a hip-hop show made local headlines. Not because it happened. But because the venue, one of many operating in the region with a sluggish enforcement of rules for overcrowded indoor events, was caught because he had an audience larger than 50 without a permit and lost his liquor license.
In Tucson, the state’s second-largest city, pubs received a temporary adjournment in court this week against a short-lived 22:00 evening clock set to stop insiders late at night.
“I understand that, people are incredibly tired of the virus. Pretending it doesn’t exist is not the answer, ”said Joshua LaBaer, a diagnostic expert and director of Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute research center. LaBaer, whose center operates test sites across the state, estimates that “between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 people in Arizona currently have an active case of the virus.”
According to him, tests are also lower than expected.
‘We offer more tests and are available, even on our free public test sites, but people do not sign up. Not clear why, ”he said, adding that it made him less optimistic about infection rates, which had been declining slightly in recent days.
‘There are about 15,000 tests a day across the country. It is low for one of the national and global hotspots and makes me believe that the actual case load is higher, ”said LaBaer. “We have to test 80,000 or 100,000 daily.”
Government officials have largely rejected hospitals’ requests for swift action to ease pressure on congested ICUs. Last month, the chief medical officers of eight of the state’s largest hospitals wrote a letter to Government Doug Ducey and Arizona Department of Health Services Director Cara Christ calling for curfew rules and an end to indoor dining and group sports.
The shifts will be similar to short-lived closures made across the country in June and July, when the summer in Arizona in Arizona caused more than 3,800 cases daily. Today, the average has jumped to 8,000 cases each day. Increasing hospitalizations have led to staff shortages. Banner Health, the state’s largest hospital system, has hired 1,500 out-of-state contractors and is looking for nearly 1,000 more.
Ducey, a Republican, has remained steadfast in his opposition because mayors of Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff have pleaded with him to make masks mandatory.
‘From the very beginning of COVID-19 there were differences of opinion on how to deal with it. … I have heard endless variations of the same question: why not more and longer locks? he said during his state of the nation address this month.
‘It’s a question that only makes sense if you forget about all the others – all the other problems that locks up. If we are really all together here, we must realize that ‘locking up’ is not an awkward game for many families, but that it is a disaster. ‘
Ducey said he wants to keep more people on the work list instead of quitting. The unemployment rate in the state was 7.5% last month, a drop of half a point from November. Nationally, the December unemployment rate was 6.7%. Arizona’s beleagured unemployment agency has paid more than $ 12 billion in unemployment benefits to more than 2 million workers since the start of the pandemic.
In a state where conservative currents and doubts about the dangers of COVID-19 are strong, some applauded the governor.
“It is unconstitutional to impose such rules,” said Aaron Strassberg, 39, who lives in northern Phoenix. “It’s stupid and ridiculous.”
He quit his job at Delys at Fry’s Marketplace, a grocery chain, months ago after the company had to wear employees to wear masks. Strassberg said he knows people who have fallen ill with the virus, but no one who has died or been seriously ill. He chose to do business with stores that did not meet the local mask requirements, or that were actively opposed to it.
One of his favorites, Teeslingers, a T-shirt store north of Phoenix in Cave Creek, is now under investigation by police after the owner pulled a gun on a customer for violating the store’s non-mask policy.
Ginger Sykes Torres, another resident of northern Phoenix, said her family followed the opposite approach to the virus and followed widely agreed-upon scientific guidelines.
“We’re not going to restaurants and trying to stay home,” said Torres, 43, whose uncle died of COVID-19 a few weeks ago. “It’s hard not to get discouraged if people don’t take it seriously because we take it very seriously.”
She is a mother of three children from Navajo and spends her free time packages with masks, disinfectants and protective equipment to residents and doctors in Tuba City in Navajo Nation, where her mother lives. The virus has particularly affected indigenous communities in the state.
Recently, Torres received good news. Her mother, who works at a company that transports patients between clinics and hospitals, received the first batch of the COVID-19 vaccine after a four-hour wait.
“For our family, I know it will take longer for the vaccine unless things change drastically,” she said. “But it’s a start and a relief.”