(AP Photo / Petr David Josek)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information on the coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond on December 27, 2020.
PHOENIX – Arizona health officials reported 1,296 new cases of coronavirus and three additional deaths on Sunday.
The state’s documented totals increased to 494,337 COVID-19 infections and 8,427 deaths, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services panel.
Several COVID-19 metrics in Arizona have been at or near pandemic levels.
The number of confirmed or suspected hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Arizona reached 4,190 on Saturday, after falling from a historical record of 4,226 on Thursday.
The number of COVID-19 patients in the state’s ICU beds has increased to 988, setting a record for the third time in the past four days.
Patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 across the state occupied 49% of all hospital beds, compared with a record of 50% in the previous two days and 55% of all ICU beds.
In general, hospital beds were 89% occupied and ICU beds 90% occupied. The state had 177 unused ICU beds on Saturday, 23 more than the day before.
Arizona’s weekly positivity percentage for the COVID-19 diagnostic test, an indicator of how much the virus is spreading in the community, was 22% through 87,461 tests this week. If that holds true, it will break the record of 21% for the week that started on June 28th.
Official positivity rates are based on when samples are collected, 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 6,401.43 for Saturday, according to tracking from The Associated Press.
The seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths recently reported was 69.57 on Saturday, decreasing for the fourth consecutive day.
The daily updates 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 with no 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 the latest developments on Sunday about the coronavirus pandemic across the state, country and world:
- The Navajo Nation reported 122 new cases of coronavirus and 10 additional deaths, bringing the documented total to 22,277 infections and 777 deaths.
- President Donald Trump appeared to be no closer to signing a relief from COVID-19 later in the year and spending a bill on Sunday, with millions of people losing unemployment benefits, the government preparing for a standstill amid the pandemic and lawmakers begging him to act.
- Globally, there were about 80.45 million cases of COVID-19 and 1.75 million deaths on Sunday morning, according to research by Johns Hopkins University. The figures for the US are around 18.9 million cases and 331,930 deaths.