AZ Pandemic Numbers Summary for the Seven Days Ending May 4: Almost All Indicators are Up

 

Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday:



This is not the data I was hoping to see today. Almost everything is up. Cases are up statewide, ending a three-week flat spot in the case graph. Cases have increased 25% in Maricopa County. Positive test percent is up, as is the wastewater signal in Pima County and Tempe (and again those values are lagged, from a week ago). 

Deaths are up but those are lagging indicators that might be due to infections quite some time ago. Hospital beds are still flat, but those are lagging indicators too.

The one bright spot is that Yavapai wastewater is down after a big spike over the last couple of weeks. Last week, there was no indication that the wastewater values corresponded to a lot of new cases. 

Today the Yavapai County shows 25 new cases from May 3 to May 4, which is a different story. Unfortunately they don't provide historical numbers it's hard to tell if that's an anomaly. 

Keeping these things in perspective, none of the red numbers is anywhere close to the 2022 max values. But this is how new waves start, and things can accelerate quickly. 

I will be upping masking based on this information. Be careful out there!

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