Dr. Joseph Varon enters the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at United Memorial Medical Center on December 29, 2020 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Go Nakamura / Getty Images)
This is a periodically updated story with the latest information on coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond December 30, 2020.
PHOENIX – Arizona health officials reported 5,267 new coronavirus cases and 78 additional deaths Wednesday.
The state’s documented total increased to 512,489 COVID-19 infections and 8,718 fatalities, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services scorecard.
Several COVID-19 metrics in Arizona have been at or near pandemic highs.
The number of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 hospitalizations in Arizona rose to a record 4,526 on Tuesday, 97% more since Thanksgiving.
The number of patients with COVID-19 in state ICU beds rose to 1,076 on Tuesday, the sixth consecutive day with a record high.
The use of ventilators and emergency room visits of patients confirmed or suspected of COVID-19 also reached record highs on Tuesday.
Patients with state-wide, suspected, or confirmed COVID-19 occupied 53% of all hospital beds and 61% of all ICU beds, both records.
Overall, hospital beds were 91% and ICU beds were 90% full.
The rising tide of patients with COVID-19 is squeezing the space left for other patients in Arizona hospitals. Only 39% of all patients admitted were not COVID on Tuesday, the second lowest pandemic rate. For ICU beds, 29% were not COVID, the lowest rate recorded.
Arizona’s weekly positivity percentage for diagnostic tests for COVID-19, an indicator of how widespread the virus is to the community, was 22% through 113,233 tests last week. If this is maintained, it will surpass the 21% record from the week beginning June 28th.
The positivity percentage reaches 27% through 15,433 tests this week.
Official positivity rates are based on when samples are taken, not when they are reported, so the percentage in recent weeks may fluctuate as labs catch up on testing. and the state documents the results.
The seven-day continuous average of recently reported health department cases was 5,715.29 for Tuesday, the lowest view since Dec. 7, according to The Associated Press.
The seven-day average of recently reported COVID-19 deaths rose to 73.57 for Tuesday, rising for the second day in a row after the five-day streak of falls.
Daily status updates present case, death, and evidence data after the state receives and confirms statistics, which can take several days or more. They do not represent the actual activity during the last 24 hours.
Hospitalization data released each morning is communicated electronically the night before by 100 hospitals across the state, as required by executive order.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has no impact on some people and is severely debilitating or deadly to others. Infected people without symptoms (which include, but are not limited to, cough, fever, and difficulty breathing) are able to spread the virus.
Information about test sites can be found on the Arizona Department of Health Services website.
Below are Wednesday’s latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic across the state, the country and the world:
- Britain authorized an easy-to-use coronavirus vaccine and decided to extend the time between doses to allow more people to get a faster level of protection as infections increase.
- Globally, there were about 82.11 million cases of COVID-19 and 1.79 million deaths as of Wednesday morning, according to research from Johns Hopkins University. U.S. figures were about 19.52 million cases and 338,000 deaths.