July 3 (EIRNS) The growth of COVID-19 in three U.S. states exemplifies some of the profound problems confronting the nation:
Arizona Gov.Doug Ducey issued an executive order this week announcing that he is again closing down bars, gyms and theaters, and limiting crowds in swimming pools to 10 people, as a summary of the state’s COVID-19 tests reveals that 24% of the state’s tests are coming back positive.
“Conditions are deteriorating and they’re going to continue to deteriorate at least for the next two to three weeks,” warned Dr. Joe Gerald, professor of public health at the University of Arizona who runs modeling of the coronavirus outbreak, as the state hits new records nearly every day for the number of positive cases. “You don’t have to play that out very long to realize we’re soon going to be in considerable trouble as our safety margin for excess hospital beds is fairly quickly dwindling,” and the state could run out of licensed beds by the end of July.
There is the complementary issue of sufficient staffing. Arizona asked the federal government to provide 500 front-line health care workers to support the staff-short hospital system. On July 1, Vice President Mike Pence visited Arizona and said the state would get any help it needs to handle the surge of patients, NPR reports.
