The COVID-19 pandemic is 5 years old. Here's how Arizona fared
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, on March 11, 2020, declared a state of emergency over a new respiratory virus. At the time there had been nine cases reported in Arizona.
The same day that Ducey issued his declaration, the World Health Organization said that novel coronavirus was a worldwide pandemic.
Since that time, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, became known as COVID-19. The federal tally of COVID-19 deaths in Arizona since 2020, as reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is 31,333. Nationally, the tally is 1.2 million, the CDC says.
Worldwide, the death count is 7.1 million and the U.S. has had more COVID-19 deaths than any other country, followed by Brazil and India.
Here are five facts about COVID-19 in Arizona:
The first Arizona case — the fifth in the U.S. — was confirmed in a 26-year-old Maricopa County man on Jan. 26, 2020.
Back then, the virus did not have a name and was often being referred to as the new coronavirus or novel coronavirus. The advice from public health officials at the time was to take precautions similar to preventing the flu.
Not long after a March 7 religious rally in the Navajo community of Chilchinbeto in Northern Arizona, patients with low oxygen saturation rates, fever and trouble breathing began seeking care at tribal health facilities.
State health officials called the surge in tribal cases a "significant outbreak" and the case numbers made headlines across the country as a hotspot for infections.
By April 16, the Navajo Nation, which has reservation land in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico and about 180,000 residents, had reported 838 positive cases and 33 known deaths. Most of the positive cases — 543 — were in Arizona, the tribe reported.
Also, by mid-April, the Arizona Department of Heath Services reported Native Americans comprised 21% of COVID-19 deaths where race and ethnicity was known, even though about 4.6% of Arizonans are American Indian or Alaska Native.
In a joint statement, Maricopa County and the Arizona Department of Health Services on March 20, 2020, announced that a man in his 50s who had underlying health conditions had died of COVID-19.
The Arizona Republic confirmed through an autopsy report that the man who died was Trevor Bui, a 50-year-old deputy Phoenix aviation director.
Bui died at his Chandler home March 17, 2020, Maricopa County Medical Examiner records say, and never knew he was positive for COVID-19.
Viruses: It's been a severe flu season in Arizona. How much longer will it linger?
When the COVID-19 vaccine first became widely available in 2021, there was a huge rush to get appointments. Demand constantly exceeded supply. But by June of that year, interest in getting vaccinated had waned and deaths continued.
"It's very clear that the serious cases, the ones that become hospitalized, or worse, death — those are the ones that are unvaccinated," David Engelthaler, director of the infectious disease branch of the Arizona-based Translational Genomics Research Institute said in July 2021.
There are well-documented cases of deaths connected with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, as well as cases of serious side effects from all of the COVID-19 vaccines. But taken as a whole, the COVID-19 vaccine is extremely effective at preventing infection, hospitalization and death.
Misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine proliferated in Arizona and across the U.S. and Arizona's COVID-19 vaccination rate lagged the rest of the country throughout the pandemic. Many Republicans argued that mitigation measures impinged on individual freedoms.
"I was really surprised at how political all this got," said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association. "When the COVID-19 vaccine first came out and people were rushing to get it, I thought the anti-vax movement would be gone for sure. My jaw dropped when I saw it made it worse."
During the past three months, 206 Arizonans have died from COVID-19, the CDC says.
Those at highest risk are people with weakened immune systems, including elderly people.
Reach health care reporter Stephanie Innes at Stephanie.Innes@gannett.com or follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @stephanieinnes.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Overview of Arizona's handling of COVID-19 pandemic 5 years later
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