COVID-19 National and Arizona Update: White House, CDC Issue New Guidances on Masking and Returning to Work

In Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, President Biden announced that “it’s time for Americans to get back to work,” and outlined new efforts to return the public to normal activities after two years of the pandemic related to COVID-19. The White House subsequently announced a “National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan,” on Wednesday morning.

The president announced a “test-to-treat” initiative that will provide free antiviral polls at pharmacies for those who test positive for COVID-19 and he highlighted the progress made on the pandemic since 2020, including vaccines, tests and new therapeutics. He said,

Tonight, I can say we are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines. It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again.

A White House official told PBS Newshour that the “test-to-treat” plan will initially rollout in pharmacies across the country including CVS and Walgreens locations. Furthermore, the president said in his address that four more at-home rapid COVID-19 tests would be available to each U.S. household through COVIDTests.gov.

Arizona COVID-19 Numbers

This is the first week that the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) will report COVID-19 cases, deaths, vaccinations, hospitalizations, hospital capacities and tests weekly instead of daily. The ADHS COVID-19 data dashboard reports 449 new deaths and 9,647 new cases related to COVID-19 since last week. Over 10% of hospital intensive care unit beds are in use and their use by COVID-19 patients has substantially declined to only 17%.

The dashboard will now include a two-week lag in COVID-19 hospitalization rates, which means that there is a temporary decrease in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations compared to the daily data update. In an ADHS blog post, the department argues that the lag allows for more accuracy in data because the lag often exists when matching positive cases to hospital records.

Arizona has maintained one of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with a total of 27,708 deaths attributed to the coronavirus since records began. The Arizona Republic reports that ADHS cautions that data collection can vary from state-to-state and not enough information exists to demonstrate Arizona’s true death ranking. From Jessica Rigler, ADHS’s assistant director for public health preparedness:

I think it’s really difficult to say whether we are third-worst in the country just based on the variability and the timeframes for which different states collect, process and classify their data. It’s hard to say. What we do see from the data is that there have been, tragically, lots of people in Arizona who have died due to COVID-19 and that part is unquestionable.

Masking Guidance

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its public indoor mask guidance, linking it to local hospital capacity and COVID-19 cases rather than transmission rates to decide when masking is appropriate. McKnights reports that 37% of U.S. counties currently have a high community COVID-19 rate and public indoor masking is still recommended in these areas. Guidance is still unchanged in healthcare settings, and LeadingAge is trying to encourage the CDC to revisit COVID-19 protocols in nursing homes. From Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge:

News from the CDC today that our country has entered a new phase of the pandemic is certainly positive. While a shift toward pre-pandemic life is exciting, we remind America that a return to ‘normal’ is important for older adults living in long-term care, too. These communities are home to millions of residents who deserve parity with the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, hospitals plan to continue mask mandates, regardless of CDC guidance, according to Modern Healthcare. The reassessment of public masking guidance doesn’t change the fact that masks work to protect hospital staff, the immunocompromised and other vulnerable patients, according to Avinash Virk, an infectious disease consultant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

We will still be requiring our patients and visitors to be masked so we can keep everybody within our institution safe and keep functioning to provide the healthcare that people need.

In Arizona, residents of Santa Cruz, Yavapai, Coconino and Maricopa counties do not need to wear masks, according to the CDC’s new guidance; but everyone else in the state still must due to high community spread, Arizona Public Media reports.