The number of virus patients occupying hospital beds topped 1,000 for the third day in a row, at 1,106 on Friday. That is twice as many as on June 30th and most since March 2nd.
Public health officials in Arizona and elsewhere attribute the worsening spread to the contagious Delta variant and low vaccination rates.
“Unlike last summer when we went to school with falling rates, the match was lit and the kindling is burning this time,” said Dr. Joe K. Gerald, a University of Arizona researcher tracking COVID-19 data, on Twitter.
The additional 2,066 cases and 22 deaths brought the confirmed Arizona pandemic totals to 927,235 cases and 18,246 deaths.
SACRAMENTO, California – California spent nearly $ 200 million to set up, operate, and staff alternative care facilities that ultimately weren’t needed as much as feared during the coronavirus surge last winter.
It was a costly way to learn that California’s hospital system is far more resilient than was thought at the start of the pandemic. The system expanded enough to accommodate most of the patients during the terrible surge when hospital admissions exceeded 20,000 and nearly 700 people died weekly.
The traditional hospital system came through the worst of the pandemic with little overflow into alternative care facilities because the state temporarily eased the staffing relationship between nurses and patients – to protect the sick and their carers – and because of a scramble, temporary outsiders, said Stephanie Roberson , Director of Government Relations for the California Nurses Association.