Arizona lawmakers made progress on several bills related to healthcare and COVID-19 this week.
Last Tuesday, the Arizona Senate Health and Human Services Committee approved HB 2474, which would prohibit schools from requiring immunizations issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under emergency use authorization for...
Maybe it was a lab leak after all? Or maybe not. This week the U.S. Energy Department announced that it determined that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely arise from a laboratory leak. Governor Katie Hobbs proclaims COVID-19 Memorial Day.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the announcement was made after a classified report was...
This week, the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) is required to report 26,866 new cases of COVID-19 in Arizona, but it does not signal an unprecedented new surge.
In a blog post, the department stressed that this number comes from a single laboratory reporting cases that occurred over the course of last year. The case count...
On Monday, the Biden administration announced that it would end the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declaration. The announcement came as the U.S. House of Representatives passed two bills that would curb federal authority in pandemic response. In Arizona, legislators are pushing bills that would ban schools from requiring...
New information on Long COVID is emerging as researchers investigate the causes and symptoms of the elusive condition. Meanwhile, stakeholder groups and providers are appealing to the federal government for guidance on returning to normal operating procedures as perception of the pandemic subsides.
The U.S. Department of Health and...
The Omicron-specific bivalent booster shots have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the nation pivots to encourage annual vaccinations, Arizona gears up to rollout the new booster shots to seniors before the expected winter surge of COVID-19 sets...
COVID-19 is still present in Arizona and cases are rapidly rising while Governor Doug Ducey signs a number of anti-public health bills into law preventing any public COVID prevention policies from implementation.
The New York Times COVID Tracker reports that Arizona cases of COVID-19 are up 84% in the past two weeks and the Arizona...
On Wednesday, Governor Doug Ducey signed into law a 15-week abortion ban that would potentially jail any physician that performs an abortion after the cutoff date.
The law will go into effect 90 days after the legislative session ends, which is more than enough time for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on Dodd v. Jackson Women's...
The official number of global deaths from COVID-19 surpassed six million on Monday, 4% of which were recorded in the last month. The United States is very close to reaching a million deaths on its own, and Arizona's death count exceeded the 28,000 marker this week.
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) COVID-19...
The Arizona State Legislature now enters its third month of the 2022 session and a number of healthcare-related bills have been heard concerning COVID-19 vaccination requirements, transgender healthcare and abortion.
One such bill is House Bill 2198, proposed by Representative Steve Kaiser (R-Phoenix), which would require companies...
It appears that the surge in cases of COVID-19 due to the Omicron variant has peaked, and nationwide hospitalizations are also declining. There are currently about 130,000 patients hospitalized with the virus at this time, but hospitalizations remain at the highest levels of the pandemic thus far.
Vaccine Development
Pfizer and...
Arizona officially has the distinction of ranking second nationally for COVID deaths per capita, currently trailing Mississippi. The state has now surpassed 26,000 COVID-19 deaths and is averaging nearly 14,000 new cases per day. On Wednesday, there were 24 new COVID-19 related deaths and 8,329 new cases reported.
This information...
The case count in Arizona shows no sign of abating as Arizona recorded almost 25,000 new cases of COVID-19 on January 15, setting a record. Hospitals and healthcare advocacy groups warn that the overburdened healthcare system is strapped for staff and resources as hospitalizations continue. On Wednesday, January 19, the state reported...
As the Omicron variant surges in Arizona, hospitals are struggling to maintain staffing levels and resources to treat the influx of patients. As of Wednesday, Jan. 12, the state reached a new record daily high of 18,783 new COVID-19 cases after rising for 11 consecutive days.
According to KTAR, Arizona is likely to see more record...
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden addressed the nation in an attempt to calm fears about skyrocketing COVID-19 cases and overwhelmed hospitals across the country. The president leaned on the vaccine for mitigating hospitalization rates as the cases continue to surge due to the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of the virus.
We have in...
The new year brings a new surge of COVID-19, this time driven by the Omicron variant which researchers regard somewhat optimistically. Even still, schools are gearing up for a staff shortage as the governor and school administrators vow there won't be school closures. Additionally, the Arizona Department of Health Services released a...
The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has surged in the United States in the past week and now accounts for 73% of new infections. The CDC showed a six-fold increase in Omicron infection in a single week. In the New York area, the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest, the variant is responsible for an estimated 90% of new infections,...
On December 14, there were 116,892 new cases of COVID-19 reported in the United States and the seven day case average is 120,719. On December 15, the nation added 1,285 new deaths and crossed the 800,000 mark for deaths related to the coronavirus. About 61% of Americans are fully vaccinated and two million doses are administered daily,...
The a rolling 7-day average in the United States is now 1,319 deaths per day. On December 6, there were 113,992 new cases of COVID-19 reported nationwide. Over 60,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with complications from COVID-19.
Only 60% of the country is fully vaccinated with 71% of the population having received at least...
Cases are on a slow uptick nationwide with new cases on Tuesday, November 23 totaling 92,785. The rolling seven-day average for new cases is 95,481. There were 1,474 new deaths nationally and the total number of deaths nationally is now over 775,000. About 70% of the country has received at least one dose of the vaccine and just under...
