(Photo by Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
PHOENIX – Arizona would not currently be the country’s worst hot spot COVID-19 if state officials had been doing a better job of enforcing mitigation rules, according to public health expert Dr. Will Humble.
“Companies recognized, especially bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, that they could flee by cheating on these measures and not be punished,” said Humble, president of the Arizona Public Health Association and former director of the Department of Health Services. Arizona. The Mike Broomhead Show on KTAR News 92.3 FM on Tuesday.
Humble said it has become so bad that the only significant step to save lives the state could take at the moment would be to close bars and limit restaurants to food service.
He said that while thousands of companies are subject to state-enacted mitigation rules over the summer, the health department has only taken 15 enforcement actions.
“Are you telling me it’s a significant application of mitigation measures? … I can’t say it clearly enough: if we’d been doing a better application in those indoor environments, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking on the radio about shutting down ‘these businesses,’ he said.
Humble acknowledged that the closure of companies could hurt economically and create additional public health problems, but noted that they helped reverse the first wave of the pandemic in July.
He said there is nothing the government can force to combat the spread of coronavirus that occurs during meetings in private homes, but that is no reason not to do anything else in terms of mitigation.
“From my point of view, what policy levers do you really have to score?” He said.
Humble suggested that Gov. Doug Ducey could use federal aid funds to help offset the economic impact of the closures.
“But he will take the urge to make that call, recognizing that there is money in the safety net,” he said. “It saves money from the CARES Act. He is sitting on the bench. “
Humble wondered if Ducey and the Director of Health, Dr. Dear Christ, they were concerned to curb the spread of COVID-19 at this stage.
“I think his attitude has been,‘ Look, we’re not going to try to mitigate this thing, we’re going to try to vaccinate it, ’” he said.
As of Tuesday, the health department said about 100,000 of Arizona’s more than 7 million residents have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Low supplies are being rationed into priority groups.
Arizona, meanwhile, has had the highest per capita coronavirus transmission rate in the country and the seventh highest COVID-19 mortality rate in seven days, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
State hospitals see a record number of patients confirmed or suspected of COVID-19, and it is on the verge of getting worse due to inaction in November and December, Humble said.
“It’s not the cases per se that worry me,” he said. “It’s the fact that 7% of them will end up needing to be hospitalized in about seven, eight, nine days,” he said.
“That’s the time it takes after you’re diagnosed with the disease before you get sick enough to be admitted and there’s no … in the inn. That’s what worries me.”