With continued declines in viral transmission and hospital occupancy, Arizona has transitioned from a period of crisis to one of elevated risk. With continuing improvements being forecast, hospital capacity will remain adequate to meet Arizona’s most critical needs. However, it will be many months before the backlog of non-Covid care is fully addressed. While residents and businesses should continue to follow the recommended public health mitigation efforts, normalization of lower risk activities will soon become reasonable as case rates fall below 100 new diagnoses per 100,000 residents per week. Arizona is now <175 per 100K per week. Those with risk factors for severe disease (e.g., age or comorbid conditions) should continue to shelter as much as feasible until fully vaccinated.

Note: Data for this report was updated Friday, February 19 allowing 4 full days to adjudicate cases and keep week-over-week backfill <10%. This allows more interpretable comparisons and graphics. All comparisons are week-over-week changes. Future updates will be released on Saturdays.

Test positivity among those undergoing traditional nasopharyngeal PCR testing decreased from 19% the week ending February 7th to 14% the week ending February 14^th (Figure 3). Positivity levels still reflect inadequate testing capacity relative to optimal public health practice. Positivity should be <10%.

As of February 19th, 1650 (19%) of Arizona’s 8597 general ward beds were occupied by Covid-19 patients, a 28% decrease from the previous week’s 2300 occupied beds (Figure 4 and Figure 5 Panel A). Another 1039 (12%) beds remained available for use. The number of available beds is higher than the previous week’s 922 beds.

Covid-19 occupancy has dropped by 68% from its January 11^th peak of 5082 ward patients. While this is good news hospitals remain far above seasonal occupancy.

As of February 19th, 517 (29%) of Arizona’s 1763 ICU beds were occupied with Covid-19 patients, a 26% decrease from the prior week’s count of 701 patients (Figure 4 and Figure 5 Panel B). An additional 247 (14%) ICU beds remained available for use. This is higher than the prior week’s 232 available beds. ICU occupancy has fallen 56% from its January 11^th peak of 1183 occupied beds.

While Arizona hospitals’ safety margins remain low they are slowly improving (Figure 6, following page). Medically necessary procedures are now being scheduled in a limited capacity. Nevertheless, the tremendous backlog of postponed care will take months to resolve. The recent trends in hospitalization numbers and occupancy are encouraging. As capacity constraints are lessened, care practices should return to those prior to the outbreak ensuring all patients will receive optimal care. Nevertheless, hospitals will remain crowded through February before returning to pre-outbreak levels in early spring assuming continued reductions in viral transmission.

The week ending January 17th remains Arizona’s deadliest with 1011 deaths (Figure 7). The week of January 17^th should represent a peak with subsequent improvement in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, Covid-19 deaths are expected to remain high for the next 3 - 5 weeks.

For the week ending February 14th, 1666 Pima County residents were diagnosed with Covid-19 (Figure 8). This represents a 31% decrease from the 2429 cases initially reported last week. Test capacity and/or uptake also declined from last week.

Last week’s initial tally of 2429 cases was downwardly revised by 1% (32 cases) to 2397 cases. Trends and case rates are similar across various age groups (Figure 9).