A member of the medical team, Tanna Ingraham, reacts when her patient is able to eat food alone for the first time after the intubation tubes were removed in the COVID-19 intensive care unit on Christmas Day at the United Memorial Medical Center on 25 December 2020 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Go Nakamura / Getty Images)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information on the coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond, on December 28, 2020.
PHOENIX – Arizona health officials reported 10,086 new cases of coronavirus and 42 additional deaths on Monday, as the number of cases in the state reached half a million.
The state’s documented totals increased to 504,423 COVID-19 infections and 8,469 deaths, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services panel.
The new case report, which was the third largest in a single day, included multi-day additions over the holiday weekend, the department said.
Several COVID-19 metrics in Arizona have been at or near pandemic levels.
The number of patients admitted to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 hospitals in Arizona rose to a maximum of 1,007 on Sunday, reaching quadruple digits for the first time.
The number of COVID-19 patients in the state’s ICU beds increased to 4,390 on Sunday, a jump of 200 in 24 hours.
Suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients across the state occupied a record 52% of all hospital beds and 57% of all ICU beds.
In general, the hospital beds were 90% occupied and the ICU beds were 91% occupied.
Arizona’s weekly positivity percentage for the COVID-19 diagnostic test, an indicator of how much the virus is spreading in the community, was 23% through 94,911 tests last week. If that holds true, it will break the 21% record for the week that started on June 28.
Official positivity rates are based on when samples are taken, not when they are reported, so the percentage of the past few weeks may fluctuate as laboratories update tests and results are documented by the state.
The seven-day continuous average for cases recently reported by the health department was 5,820 on Sunday, according to tracking from The Associated Press, the lowest since December 7.
The seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths recently reported was 65.14, the lowest since December 16.
Daily state updates show case, death, and test data after the state receives the statistics and confirms them, which can take several days or more. They do not represent actual activity in the past 24 hours.
Hospitalization data published every morning is reported electronically the night before by 100 hospitals across the state, as required by the executive order.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has no impact on some people and is severely debilitating or fatal for 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 the test locations can be found on the Arizona Department of Health Services website.
Below are Monday’s latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic across the state, country and world:
- Globally, there were about 80.88 million cases of COVID-19 and 1.76 million deaths on Monday morning, according to research by Johns Hopkins University. The figures for the US are around 19.13 million cases and 333,000 deaths.