TUCSON, AZ – JANUARY 14: An employee heads to refrigerated semi-trucks containing bodies at the Pima County Examiner’s Office on January 14, 2021 in Tucson, Arizona. After reaching capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, two refrigerated semi-trailers arrived at the Pima County office of the examining physician for additional storage. (Photo by Courtney Pedroza / Getty Images)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information about coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and not just for January 16, 2021.
PHOENIX – Arizona health officials reported 8,715 new coronavirus cases and 208 additional deaths from COVID-19 on Saturday.
The state’s documented totals have risen to 666,901 COVID-19 infections and 11,248 deaths, according to the health department’s dashboard.
More than 1,000 deaths have been added to the total in the last seven days.
Arizona currently leads the nation in cases and has the second-highest COVID-19 deaths per capita in seven days, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
COVID-19 hospitalizations began to recede after rising to record levels earlier this week.
The number of confirmed or suspected hospitalized patients in Arizona for COVID-19 fell for the fourth consecutive day to 4,849 on Friday, the lowest since January 4.
Nationally, patients suspected or confirmed of COVID-19 took over 56% of all hospital beds and 64% of all intensive care beds on Friday, both down from the previous day.
In general, hospital beds and intensive care beds were each 92% full.
Arizona’s weekly positivity test for the diagnosis of COVID-19, an indicator of how widespread the virus is in the community, has fallen since it reached a record two weeks ago.
Of the 95,022 people tested this week, 20% received a positive result. The positive rate is 22% for the 204,788 people tested last week, down 2 percentage points from the previous week’s record level.
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 current seven-day average for the newly reported coronavirus of the health department was 8,847.86 for Friday, down for the third day in a row, according to a follow-up by The Associated Press.
The seven-day average of deaths recently reported by COVID-19 dropped to 157.43 on Friday, marking the number of deaths for the second day in a row.
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 displayed each morning is reported electronically in the previous evening by 100 hospitals across the country, 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.
Diagnostic testing is available in hundreds of locations in Arizona and should be looked for by anyone with symptoms or who may have been exposed to an infected person. Information about locations, programs and registration can be found on the website of the Department of Health Services.
The department also has a vaccine search page with a map of active and pending locations and links to registration sites.
Below are the latest developments on Saturday about the coronavirus pandemic across the country, country and world:
- Globally, there have been approximately 93.97 million cases of COVID-19 and 2.01 million deaths since Friday morning, according to research from Johns Hopkins University. The figures for the US were about 23.53 million cases and 392,182 deaths.