Medical team members work to extract a muscle sample from a patient for a muscle biopsy exam at the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) at United Memorial Medical Center on December 22, 2020 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Go Nakamura / Getty Images)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information on coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond on December 23, 2020.
PHOENIX – Arizona health officials reported on Wednesday 6,058 new cases of coronavirus and 54 additional deaths, while state hospitals are handling a record number of patients with COVID-19.
The state’s documented totals increased to 473,273 COVID-19 infections and 8,179 deaths, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
The daily reports 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.
Several COVID-19 metrics in Arizona remain at or near pandemic levels.
The number of patients admitted to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 hospitals in Arizona reached an all-time high of 4,163 on Tuesday, an increase of 144 from the previous day. It was the 10th daily record of patients hospitalized with coronavirus in the last 12 days.
The number of patients with COVID-19 in the state’s ICU beds was up to 972, breaking the record of July 13, 970.
Suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients across the state occupied 49% of all hospital beds, a record, and 55% of all ICU beds.
In general, the hospital beds were 92% occupied and the ICU beds were a pandemic record 93% occupied. The state dropped to 119 unused ICU beds, the lowest number in the pandemic.
The seven-day average for COVID-19 deaths recently reported by the health department rose to 100.43 on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press tracking, breaking the July 30, 94 record.
The seven-day continuous average for new reported cases was 6,119 on Tuesday, slightly above the previous day, but the second lowest since December 11.
Arizona’s weekly positivity percentage for the COVID-19 diagnostic test, an indicator of how far the virus is spreading in the community, is on track to hit a record high after stabilizing in recent weeks.
For 12,304 tests recorded this week, the positivity rate was 21%, which would correspond to the record of the week that started on June 28th.
The rate was 18% in the previous three weeks.
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.
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 Wednesday’s latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic across the state, country and world:
- The Navajo Nation reported 157 new cases of coronavirus and no recent deaths, bringing the documented total to 21,513 infections and 755 deaths.
- With COVID-19 appearing across Arizona, several facilities in Arizona’s largest hospital system, Banner Health, have reduced elective surgeries and are operating at more than 100% capacity.
- A group of Arizona State University students won $ 500,000 in a face mask design competition to overcome common complaints about wearing protection.
- President Donald Trump threatened to torpedo the huge relief of COVID-19 and the Congressional end-of-year package, reversing a much-disputed commitment amid a violent pandemic and deep economic uncertainty, demanding changes that his Republican colleagues opposed.
- The number of Americans seeking unemployment insurance fell by 89,000 last week, to a still high 803,000, evidence that the job market remains under stress nine months after the coronavirus outbreak put the US economy into recession and caused millions of layoffs.
- Arizona Department of Health Services director Dr. Cara Christ said she was “hopeful” that state hospitals will have enough manpower to cope with the continuing increase in patients with COVID-19.
- Pfizer and BioNTech will supply the United States with 100 million additional doses of its COVID-19 vaccine under a second agreement.
- Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, said KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Chad and Gaydos Show that a new variant of coronavirus discovered in the United Kingdom may already be in the United States, but it is not worrying.
- Globally, there were about 78.17 million cases of COVID-19 and 1.72 million deaths on Wednesday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University research. The figures for the US are around 18.24 million cases and 323,000 deaths.