Employees of the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office move the bodies in a refrigerated semi-truck to 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 15, 2021.
PHOENIX – Health officials in Arizona reported 9,146 new coronavirus cases and 185 additional deaths from COVID-19 on Friday.
The state’s documented totals have risen to 658,186 COVID-19 infections and 11,040 deaths, according to the health department’s dashboard.
More than 1,100 deaths have been added to the total in the last seven days.
Arizona has maintained the national top position for both cases and deaths per capita over the past 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 hospitalized patients confirmed or suspected of COVID-19 in Arizona fell for the third day in a row to 4,866 on Thursday, the lowest since January 4. The number of ICU beds used by patients with COVID-19 fell for the second day in a row to 1,138, the lowest since January 9.
Nationwide, patients suspected or confirmed of COVID-19 took over 56% of all inpatient beds on Thursday and 63% of all ICU beds, 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 67,870 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 average of seven days for the newly reported coronavirus of the health department was 9,206.71 for Thursday, decreasing for the second consecutive day, according to the follow-up made by The Associated Press.
The seven-day average of newly reported COVID-19 deaths fell to 159.14 on Thursday, recording a series of eight consecutive days of registration.
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 Friday about the coronavirus pandemic across the country, country and world:
- The overall death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 2 million on Friday, just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in China.
- Globally, there have been approximately 93.24 million COVID-19 cases and 2 million deaths since Friday morning, according to research from Johns Hopkins University. The figures for the US were about 23.32 million cases and 389,000 deaths.