Dr. Joseph Varon enters the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at United Memorial Medical Center on December 29, 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 30, 2020.
PHOENIX – Arizona health officials reported 5,267 new cases of coronavirus and 78 additional deaths on Wednesday.
The state’s documented totals rose to 512,489 COVID-19 infections and 8,718 deaths, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services dashboard.
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 4,526 on Tuesday, an increase of 97% since Thanksgiving.
The number of patients with COVID-19 in ICU state beds rose to 1,076 on Tuesday, the sixth consecutive day, with a record high.
The use of ventilators and visits to the emergency room of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients also reached record levels on Tuesday.
At the national level, patients suspected or confirmed of COVID-19 took 53% of all hospital beds and 61% of all intensive care beds, both records.
In general, hospital beds were 91% and ICU beds were 90% full.
The large increase in patients with COVID-19 is squeezing the space left for other patients in Arizona hospitals. Only 39% of all hospitalized patients were non-COVID on Tuesday, the second lowest pandemic rate. For ICU beds, 29% were non-COVID, the lowest rate recorded.
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 22% through 113,233 tests for the past week. If it holds up, it will break the 21% record for the week beginning June 28.
The percentage of positivity is up to 27% through 15,433 tests this week.
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 5,715.29 on Tuesday, the lowest recorded since December 7, according to the follow-up made by The Associated Press.
The seven-day average of new COVID-19 deaths rose to 73.57 on Tuesday, rising for the second day in a row after a five-day decline.
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 about test locations can be found on the Arizona Department of Health Services website.
Below are the latest developments on Wednesday about the coronavirus pandemic across the country, country and world:
- The UK has authorized an easy-to-use coronavirus vaccine and has decided to extend the time between doses to allow more people to get a level of protection faster as infections grow.
- Globally, there have been about 82.11 million COVID-19 cases and 1.79 million deaths since Wednesday morning, according to research from Johns Hopkins University. The figures for the US were around 19.52 million cases and 338,000 deaths.