Medical staff member Tanna Ingraham reacts as her patient manages to eat food alone for the first time after the intubation tubes were removed in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on Christmas Day at United Memorial Medical Center in December 25, 2020 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Go Nakamura / Getty Images)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information about coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and not just for December 28, 2020.
PHOENIX – Arizona health officials reported 10,086 new coronavirus cases and 42 additional deaths on Monday, as the number of cases in the state reached half a million.
The state’s documented totals rose to 504,423 COVID-19 infections and 8,469 deaths, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services dashboard.
The new case report, which was the third largest for a single day, included multi-day additions over the holiday weekend, the department said.
Several COVID-19 values in Arizona were at or near pandemic highs.
The number of patients admitted to the COVID-19 hospital confirmed or suspected rose to a record 4,390 on Sunday, a jump of 200 in 24 hours.
The number of patients with COVID-19 in ICU state beds rose to a record high of 1,007 on Sunday, reaching fourfold for the first time.
Nationally, patients suspected or confirmed of COVID-19 took a record 52% of all hospital beds and a record 57% of all ICU beds.
In total, hospital beds were 90% full and intensive care beds were 91% full.
The weekly positive percentage in Arizona for testing for the diagnosis of COVID-19, an indicator of the extent of the virus spreading in the community, was 23% through 94,911 tests for the past week. If maintained, it will break the 21% record for the week beginning June 28.
Official positivity rates are based on the time of sampling, not the time they are reported, so the percentage in recent weeks may fluctuate as laboratories are tested and the results are documented by the state.
The seven-day continuous average for the recently reported cases of the health department was 5,820 for Sunday, according to the follow-up made by The Associated Press, the lowest since December 7.
The seven-day average of recent COVID-19 deaths was 65.14, the lowest since December 16.
Daily state updates present case, death, and test data after the state receives and confirms statistics, which may remain for a few days or more. It is not the actual activity of the last 24 hours.
Hospitalization data posted each morning is reported electronically the previous evening 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 and is severely debilitating or fatal to others. Asymptomatic infected people – which include, but are not limited to, cough, fever, and difficulty breathing – are able to spread the virus.
Information on test locations can be found on the Arizona Department of Health Services website.
Below are Monday’s latest developments about the coronavirus pandemic across the country, country and world:
- Globally, there have been approximately 80.88 million COVID-19 cases and 1.76 million deaths since Monday morning, according to research from Johns Hopkins University. The figures for the US were about 19.13 million cases and 333,000 deaths.