The Bible-Based Fellowship Church partnered with the Pasco County Department of Health and the Army National Guard to help residents 65 and older administer the Modern Covid-19 vaccine on February 13, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Octavio Jones / Getty Images)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information on the coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond, on February 17, 2021.
PHOENIX – Arizona has exceeded 800,000 reported cases of coronavirus and 15,000 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began.
State officials on Wednesday reported 1,315 new cases and 82 additional deaths, bringing the documented totals to 801,055 infections and 15,063 deaths, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services panel COVID-19.
After the peak in the first part of January, the numbers of cases and hospitalizations dropped to pre-Thanksgiving levels in Arizona.
The number of confirmed or suspected inpatients with COVID-19 in state hospitals dropped to 1,941 on Tuesday, the lowest since November 21. The number of ICU beds used by patients with COVID-19 has dropped to 593, the lowest since November 29.
Arizona’s weekly positivity percentage for the COVID-19 diagnostic test, an indicator of how much the virus is spreading in the community, has declined every week since the beginning of the year.
Of the 90,406 people tested last week, 9% tested positive, the lowest rate since the end of October. The rate has been 9% for 7,354 people tested so far this week.
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 average for new cases of coronavirus reported by the state health department was 1,781.71 on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press tracking, the lowest since November 9.
The seven-day average of recently reported deaths has remained stubbornly high since the beginning of February, but dropped to 99.29 on Tuesday, dropping below 100 for the first time since January 5.
In Tuesday’s update to the US Centers for Disease Control, Arizona ranked third in the country in deaths from COVID-19 per capita in the last seven days and 11 in cases.
Daily updates from the Arizona Department of Health present data on cases, deaths and tests 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.
The diagnostic test is available in hundreds of locations across Arizona and should be sought out by anyone with symptoms or who may have been exposed to an infected person. Information on locations, times and registration can be found on the Department of Health Services website.
For more information on vaccine availability across the state, the ADHS website has a vaccine location page with a map of locations and registration information.
Below are Wednesday’s latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic across the state, country and world:
- The Arizona Department of Health Services reported that 1,291,053 of the 1,395,300 doses of the state’s allocated COVID-19 vaccine were administered, an increase of 63,782 over the previous day. This leaves the state with only 104,247 unused doses until next week’s allocation.
- Globally, there were about 109.61 million cases of COVID-19 and 2.42 million deaths on Wednesday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University research. The figures for the US were around 27.76 million cases and 488,000 deaths.