Arizona ranks as ‘least safe’ state in pandemic: study

 Arizona remains a national hot spot for the pandemic.

Deaths continued to rise by 5% as a 14-day average, which isn’t surprising since the peak in deaths normally lags behind a peak in infections.

Meanwhile, hospitalizations last week had dropped by 6% over the past two weeks — another sign that a surge in infections perhaps triggered by family gatherings during the holidays has subsided.

The rollout in vaccinations that confer 95% protection with minimal side effects continues slowly. The websites of Apache, Navajo and Gila counties last week reported the clinics don’t have enough new doses to schedule additional appointments.

Even people in high-risk groups find themselves now in the frustrating and frightening position of making daily calls or website visits to the sites in hope of an appointment to get the two shots in the course of a month that confers protection against the virus.

Gila County had completed at least the first round of inoculating front-line medical workers, teachers and public safety workers, before running out of vaccine and shifting the job of scheduling vaccine clinics to health partners like Banner through the state appointments system. Remaining people in the 1A and 1B groups — including teachers and those older than 75 — were advised to just keep checking online for an open appointment. On Jan. 25, the site said no appointments were available.

Apache and Navajo counties as of last week hadn’t started on the high priority groups like teachers and public safety workers, much less other high-priority essential workers and those older than 75.

The high infection rates statewide and the relatively slow rollout of the vaccination program have earned Arizona status as the “least safe” state for COVID-19 in the nation on the Wallet Hub website, based on a variety of measurements. The site’s scoring system gave top-ranked Alaska a score of 95.43 and Arizona a score of 8.20.

Ironically, the Arizona Republican Party censured Republican Gov. Doug Ducey for pandemic-related restrictions on businesses, although the state has fewer restrictions than almost any other state and lifted restrictions faster last spring than almost any other state. Ducey has refused to issue a statewide mask mandate, despite recommendations from the federal government.

The Wallet Hub site considered five factors to determine Arizona’s ranking among 50 states and the District of Columbia. As of Jan. 20 on a running six-day average, Arizona’s rates were 10 or 14 times worse than the “safest” state in most of the categories:

Vaccination rate: 42nd

Rate of positive tests: 51st

Hospitalization rate: 51st

Death rate: 50th

Transmission rate: 49th

Generally, the states with the lowest vaccination rates were also the states with the highest rate of new cases, deaths and hospitalizations on a per-capita basis, according to the compilation. The figures suggest problems with the vaccine rollout go hand in hand with policy failures in slowing the spread of the virus.

As of Jan. 25, according to state and federal reports, the state had reported 728,000 cases and 12,239 deaths.

The high infection rates have spread across the state. Graham County had the highest rate — 167 average daily cases per 100,000 over the past two weeks. Neighboring Greenlee County had the lowest — 38 per 100,000.

Gila County fell somewhere in the middle, with 97 cases per 100,000 — about the same as the statewide average of 93.

Some 19 million people have now received at least one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, the only two so far approved in the U.S. The first shot confers about 60% protection from the virus. About 3.2 million have gotten the second dose, which boosts the protection to about 95%, with minimal side effects. Reported side effects include a day or so of flu-like symptoms — with some rare cases of more serious allergic reactions also reported. However, the virus itself has far more serious effects — including the death of 1% or 2% of those who have tested positive. A larger number of people have probably been infected and recovered without ever getting a test, which means the death rate may be lower.

Federal health officials on Sunday estimated that by this week perhaps 2 million people a day will be getting inoculated, up from about 1 million a day a week or so ago.

Arizona’s in the bottom 25% when it comes to the percentage of vaccine doses received that have actually been administered, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.

Epidemiologists say that the pandemic won’t be substantially controlled until about 80% or 90% of the population has either been vaccinated or recovered from an infection. Health experts hope to pass that threshold sometime this summer, providing people prove more willing to get the vaccine.

When Payson schools offered all teachers and school staff a free shot just after Christmas about one-third of those eligible decided not to get vaccinated. Nursing homes also report that a large percentage of the staff have opted not to get the free vaccine.

If that plays out in the whole population, even mass vaccination may not prove enough to stop the spread of the virus to people who have refused to get the shot or to unvaccinated populations — like children.

https://www.paysonroundup.com/covid-19/study-arizona-ranks-as-least-safe-state-in-pandemic/article_16a6fb76-3439-5465-bc72-a52dc7fc9240.html