Arizona’s new case rate continued to lead the nation, as the state reported more than 5,600 new COVID-19 cases and 191 new known deaths from the disease on Wednesday.
The state’s seven-day new case average ranked highest in the nation on Tuesday, after ranking first and second for most of last week, according to the Centers for Control’s COVID data tracker. and Disease Prevention.
Arizona’s rate of new positive cases over the past seven days was 129.5 cases per 100,000 people, according to the CDC. The average number of new cases in the US is 75.2 cases per 100,000 people.
The state reported more than 17,200 new cases on January 3, the highest number of new COVID-19 cases reported in a single day since the pandemic began, surpassing the previous state record of December 8 by nearly 5,000 cases. The record follows the Christmas and New Years holiday weekends.
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The Arizona data panel shows that 92% of all ICU beds and 92% of all inpatient beds were in use as of Tuesday, with 64% of ICU beds and 59% of non-ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients. Statewide, there were 145 ICU beds and 667 non-ICU beds available.
Hospitals are experiencing a “wave within a wave”, with signs of worse weeks ahead.
The number of patients hospitalized in Arizona for known or suspected COVID-19 cases was 5,055 on Tuesday, just below Monday’s record of 5,082 hospitalized patients. By comparison, the highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in a single day during the summer surge was 3,517 on July 13.
The number of suspected or known COVID-19 patients in ICUs across Arizona was 1,158 on Tuesday, a slight drop from a record 1,183 on Monday. During the summer surge in mid-July, ICU beds in use for COVID-19 peaked at 970.
Arizonans with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 in fans scored a record 805 on Tuesday, beating the previous record of 799 on January 7. During the summer surge, July 16 was the peak day for ventilator use with 687 patients.
Tuesday saw 2,085 patients in the emergency room for COVID-19, down from the single-day record on Dec. 29 of 2,341 positive or suspected COVID-19 patients seen in emergency departments across the state.
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New cases in Arizona have dwarfed 5,000 for 26 of the past 30 days. Public health experts expect the virus to spread further due to personal contact during the holidays.
Wednesday’s 5,629 new cases brought the total number of COVID-19 cases identified in the state to 641,729. As of Wednesday, 10,673 Arizonans are known to have died from the disease, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services data panel.
The percentage positivity, which refers to the percentage of COVID-19 diagnostic tests that are positive, is still near a maximum, which many health experts consider an early indicator of an increase in disease.
Last week, Arizona’s positivity rate was 23%. For the week before that, it was 24%, depending on the state, which has a unique way of calculating the percentage of positivity. The percentage of positivity was 4% for several weeks during August, September and October, according to state data.
Johns Hopkins University calculates Arizona’s seven-day moving average of positive percentage at 16.4% as of Wednesday. It shows that the state’s positivity percentage peaked at 24.2% last month.