THE LOCAL NUMBERS: The number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in Arizona continued to skyrocket, topping 79,000 as of Tuesday, June 30, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Pima County had seen 8,004 of the state’s 79,215 confirmed cases. The number of confirmed cases nearly quadrupled from June 1, when the state had 20,123 cases. A total of 1,632 Arizonans had died after contracting COVID-19, including 273 in Pima County, according to the June 30 report. Arizona hospitals continued to see a rise in the number of people hospitalized with COVID symptoms, as well as more people visiting emergency rooms. ADHS reported that as of June 29, 4,736 Arizonans were hospitalized and 1,435 ICDU beds (86 percent) were filled. The report shows 1,077 people arrived at emergency rooms with COVID-like symptoms on June 29.
THE NATIONAL NUMBERS: Nationwide, more than 2.5 million people had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, which had killed nearly 126,000 people in the United States as of Tuesday, June 30, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University.
NO ROOM AT THE ICU: Banner Health Chief Clinical Officer Marjorie Bessel announced over the weekend that the hospital network, which treats about half of Arizona’s hospitalized COVID patients, was reaching its limit as it activated its surge plan and balanced its load of patients among its facilities. Banner is calling in additional health care workers from around the country.
THE WORST IS YET TO BE: As COVID-19 cases continue to skyrocket, Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday ordered the closing of bars, gyms, movie theaters, water parks and river tubing operators for at least 30 days. Ducey also said Arizona would delay the start of the school year by two weeks to Aug. 17. Ducey warned that Arizonans will see more cases of COVID-19 before the numbers begin to decrease and repeated his call for Arizonans to mask up when in public, stay home as much as possible, wash their hands and keep a physical distance from others. The Department of Health will also activate its “crisis standards of care” and cancel non-emergency surgeries as more COVID patients fill hospitals, ICU beds and emergency rooms. Ducey noted the greatest growth was among people ages 20 to 44, who generally do not face the worst symptoms of the disease but are capable of transmitting it to parents, grandparents, and others who do. “I don’t want there to be any illusion or sugar-coated expectations,” Ducey said last week. “We expect that our numbers will be worse next week and the week following in terms of cases and hospitalizations.”
SCHOOLS WILL HAVE MONEY, BUT WILL THEY HAVE STUDENTS? Gov. Doug Ducey and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman last week announced new funding for Arizona schools to support the reopening of schools in August. Ducey resolved a major challenge that schools were facing: Funding is based on how many students physically attend schools and with some families turning to online learning to avoid infection in the classroom, those numbers are likely to fall. Ducey, rather than call a special session of lawmakers to change the law, instead issued an executive order providing $200 million to Arizona schools to prevent the funding cuts and support remote learning. The package also includes $40 million to improve broadband lines in rural Arizona, where internet connections can be spotty; $20 million for high-need schools; $6 million for the Arizona Teacher Academy to help with a teacher shortage; $1 million in micro-grants for innovative learning programs; $1 million to purchase vehicles for the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind; $700,000 for leadership development; and $500,000 for tutoring programs. The Arizona Department of Education is providing an additional $25 million from the federal CARES Act for assistance to schools.
NO FIREWORKS: The Town of Marana announced late Monday night that it would join Oro Valley and Tucson in canceling their usual Fourth of July fireworks displays. Tucson City Manager Mike Ortega said he hoped the show atop “A” Mountain could be rescheduled “when we can all safely come together, to celebrate coming out of this time of crisis and our return to a new normal for our society.”
PLEASE DON’T DRINK HAND SANITIZER: Arizonans are being asked to please stop trying to drink hand sanitizer to get drunk. Since June 1, Arizona’s poison centers have received 14 cases related to people drinking homemade liquor and hand sanitizers in pursuit of intoxication. While hand sanitizer does contain the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic drinks (ethanol) and can reach 140 proof, it can also contain the toxic alcohol methanol if improperly made. According to Banner Health, all 14 cases resulted in an adult being hospitalized in critical condition.
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2020.
I had hoped that the governing staff of this great state of Arizona would be smarter than to buy into the media hyped lies that are driving this unnecessary shut down of our economy. As a life long resident and fully engaged voter in all elections I am appalled at the lack of research done on this topic by any party. In light of your lack of interest in discovering the truth of the matter that is devastating the lives and the economy in this state, here’s a few facts you should know as reported by the CDC and the WHO. (Correlating web sites are in blue)
Lets begin by defining a pandemic. According to the WHO (https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/7/11-088815/en/)
“A pandemic is defined as “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people”. The classical definition includes nothing about population immunity, virology or disease severity. By this definition, pandemics can be said to occur annually in each of the temperate southern and northern hemispheres, given that seasonal epidemics cross international boundaries and affect a large number of people. However, seasonal epidemics are not considered pandemics.”
As of July 2, 2020 the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/us-cases-deaths.html) has listed 2,624,873 cases of Covid 19 and 127,299 deaths. For those of you that can’t do the math to get a percentage rate for deaths here it is: 127299 / 2624873 = .048%. LESS THAN ½ OF ONE PERCENT. That translates to 99.6% of the people that get Covid 19 survive and are just fine.
Week ending date in which the death occurred COVID-19 Deaths (U07.1)1 Deaths from All Causes Percent of Expected Deaths2 Pneumonia Deaths
(J12.0–J18.9)3 Deaths with Pneumonia and COVID-19
(J12.0–J18.9 and U07.1)3 Influenza Deaths
(J09–J11)4 Population5
Total Deaths 9,681 558,576 88 41,743 4,353 4,968 327,167,434
2/1/2020 0 56,557 95 3,635 0 454 327,167,434
2/8/2020 0 57,067 96 3,627 0 488 327,167,434
2/15/2020 0 56,079 95 3,636 0 499 327,167,434
2/22/2020 0 55,605 96 3,488 0 515 327,167,434
2/29/2020 5 54,900 96 3,502 3 583 327,167,434
3/7/2020 19 54,222 94 3,593 11 563 327,167,434
3/14/2020 44 52,187 91 3,550 22 550 327,167,434
3/21/2020 447 51,428 91 3,925 206 467 327,167,434
3/28/2020 2,205 51,602 92 4,928 1,012 349 327,167,434
4/4/2020 4,462 46,917 84 5,561 2,129 328 327,167,434
4/11/2020 2,499 22,012 40 2,298 970 172 327,167,434
As is evident by the above statistics covid-19 is no worse than pneumonia. It also apparent that more than half of the deaths are complicated by pneumonia. I find is interesting that the CDC still has not released any data showing ratio of deaths to infections of the covid-19.
The following is statistics as copied from the WHO website.
Pneumonia
2 August 2019
Key facts
• Pneumonia accounts for 15% of all deaths of children under 5 years old, killing 808 694 children in 2017.
• Pneumonia can be caused by viruses, bacteria, or fungi.
14 December 2017
News release
GENEVA
Up to 650 000 deaths annually are associated with respiratory diseases from seasonal influenza, according to new estimates by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US-CDC), the World Health Organization and global health partners.
This is just a sampling of the statistics on both these notable websites of the drivers of this “pandemic” information. As is obvious this covid-19 is no worse or more infectious or more fatal than any other flue virus. And it is far far less volatile than a cancer virus (the HPV’s) or the Pneumonia virus strains.
According to the https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1?%20
As of – April 14,2020 world wide (updated statistics above)
There are 2,052,508 confirmed cases (this does not include the cases that are not tested for) resulting in 132,932 deaths which equals 6.5% mortality rate.
(The Pharmaceutical Journal as of 15 APR 2020 Researchers have estimated the death rate from COVID-19 to be 0.66% when unconfirmed cases are taken into account.)
Also on https://www.worldometers.info:
Health
3,751,844 Communicable disease deaths this year (covid-19 is 3.5% of this)
Sources and info: Global Burden of Disease (GBD) – World Health Organization (WHO)
667 Seasonal flu deaths today as of (April 15, 2020 the latest published update)
Quick facts:
• Every year an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 people die in the world due to complications from seasonal influenza (flu) viruses.
• This figure corresponds to 795 to 1,781 deaths per day due to the seasonal flu.
• Note: The WHO and CDC has not updated its data since 2017.
Sources and info:
• Seasonal flu death estimate increases worldwide – CDC
• Up to 650 000 people die of respiratory diseases linked to seasonal flu each year – World Health Organization (WHO) 41,715,730 HIV/AIDS infected people
Sources and info:
• HIV/AIDS Statistics – World Health Organization
• Global HIV and AIDS estimates – AVERT
485,851 Deaths caused by HIV/AIDS this year (12.9% of communicable disease deaths)
Sources and info:
• UNAIDS
2,373,651 Deaths caused by cancer this year (63.2% of communicable disease deaths)
Sources and info:
• Cancer – World Health Organization (WHO)
283,489 Deaths caused by malaria this year (7.5% of communicable disease deaths)
Sources and info:
• Malaria – World Health Organization (WHO)
Of ALL the communicable diseases in this list Covid-19 is the least fatal!!!!
Additionally The CDC issues this criteria for reporting Covid19 deaths: (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf)
“In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as “probable” or “presumed.” In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgement in determining if a COVID–19 infection was likely.”
This brings into question how many of the untested deaths are actually Covid-19 or some other respiratory disease. The panic from the overblown media coverage of this has produced a knee-jerk reaction to everything from a sneeze and cough to shortness of breath as being reported as Covid-19. In areas where forensic testing of bodies is not cost effective I suspect these deaths are probably reported as Covid-19 when in fact they were something else. This then reduces the death count of actual Covid deaths. Lets give that a conservative 10% reduction. That changes the death count as of July 2, 2020, to 114,569 and changes the death percentage to .044%.
In light of this information I need to ask is all this distancing, checkout restrictions, occupancy restrictions, mask requirements, and gloves etc. more than a little ridiculous?
Additionally what good does it do? So I wait for the person in front of me at the check out line to be completely gone and for the clerk to call me up to start putting my purchases on the conveyor. Are the viruses dead in that amount of time? Do you have a method of disinfecting the conveyor belt the person in front of me just touched with all the items they just touched? Or the fifty people before that? And what about the key pad to the credit card machine, is that now clear of any contaminants? So what if the clerk is wearing gloves, in order for that to matter, they must be changed after each customer. And it is already proven that face masks are useless as the viruses are far too small to be filtered by them. So in reality the only good they will do is to hinder proper breathing of air, restrict oxygen intake, increase carbon dioxide in the blood all of which is unhealthy in its self.
Additionally people can be carriers and not know they are spreading the virus anyway. The only serious infection from this virus is the unchecked panic caused by an over zealous media bent on making a name for itself and succeeding in once again proving how unreliable it is at reporting the ENTIRE story.
As large and world wide as our economy is, it would be in the best interest of the human population of this planet and in its economy if you would return things to normal and post the information provided above in a public place to put this flu virus into its proper perspective.
Be a leader not a sheep.