Corona-zona

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is busy tying up loose ends in his public illness campaign. This time, he has issued an executive order threatening city officials with arrest and prosecution if they require vaccines for their workers.   Because of course he has. We mustn't force people to take a vaccine that has been proven safe and effective over 357 million times in the U.S., including 7 million times in Arizona, and is the only thing known that can bring the pandemic to an end. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero isn't having it. She issued a statement that is worth quoting at length: Governor Ducey is paving the way for COVID-19 to spread uncontrollably throughout our state, and attempting to impede those of us who believe in science-based solutions at the local level. After consulting with our City Attorney, it is clear that this Executive Order is legally meaningless. The action that Mayor and Council took last Friday will remain in full effect.  Governor Ducey must stop prior...

  [Hey...been off for a couple days due to work demands. I had a choice of what to post about today, but I'd be remiss if I didn't cover this particular topic.] Yesterday the Arizona governor dropped another Ducey, signing an order prohibiting universities from mandating vaccines or masks. You can't require people to be vaccinated, and you can't require those that aren't (or can't be) to wear masks to prevent them from catching or spreading disease.  This is—straight up—an order to promote public illness. It's like when Ducey decided in spring 2020 to ban local government mask mandates, only to change his mind when Arizona became the worst place in the world for COVID-19. If we needed masks to prevent illness then, why are they bad now? Of course, Ducey says this is all about individual freedom. But it's not just about individuals. If you don't get vaccinated and also don't wear a mask, you are endangering not only yourself but others around yo...

  Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is continuing his public illness campaign. This time he is banning schools from quarantining kids who have been exposed to COVID-19. He has already made it so schools can't require vaccinations and masks. Apparently, he feels that this did not do enough to promote public illness.  So Ducey has now sent a letter to schools saying they can't keep sick kids away, either. Y'know, so they can come in and transmit the more contagious Delta variant to all the unvaccinated, unmasked kids who haven't gotten it yet. Wow. I don't know what to say about this other than WTF? His behavior is unhinged and despicable. Normal governors do things to protect children. This one is doing the exact opposite, and with gusto.   To their credit, the schools are pushing back. They note that following guidance in Ducey's letter violates public health policy set by by the CDC, the Arizona Department of Health (i.e. Ducey's own agency), and the County heal...

  Will Humble, former AzDHS Director and current Arizona Public Health Association Director, recently  tweeted  an analysis showing that Arizona has extremely high COVID-19 death rates. It is first among states in increase in observed deaths by all causes during the pandemic for both 2020 and 2021. Earlier this week there appeared an article in the Arizona Republic  (paywalled; you can get a copy here if you don't mind a non-encrypted link) asking why this is so. It cites a CDC ranking that puts us at number three for COVID-19 deaths, but I'm unable to find it.  Here is one from the Kaiser Family Foundation that puts us second behind Mississippi. The Republic reporter asked state officials for an explanation, and they tried to create uncertainty about the comparisons. For instance, the AzDHS Assistant Director for Public Health Preparedness said:  I think it's really difficult to say whether we are third-worst in the country just based on the variability...

  You may recall that this summer Arizona Governor Doug Ducey tried to take federal money intended for COVID-19 relief and spend it on tax cuts for the wealthy. Because of course he did. That's the way he rolls. The feds said no . The Arizona Attorney General sued, because ensuring that money is spent for the purpose intended by Congress is somehow unconstitutional. Naturally,  he lost .   A responsible leader would take that as a sign and spend money within guidelines. But not Ducey!  He hatched a new plan to misspend relief money. He would distribute it to schools only if they complied with his public illness orders  by not requiring students to wear masks. There was a separate plan to give families $7000 each to move their kids from schools that require masks to ones that don't. This is, of course, the exact opposite of what public health considerations—not to mention common sense—say he should have done. Now the Treasury Department has been forced to ...

  The other day, I did a post criticizing Gov. Doug Ducey's executive order promoting public illness at state funded universities and community colleges.  However, I missed a detail that moves the order into a category beyond asinine.  As I noted before, the order says schools can't require proof of vaccination, and they can't require people to wear masks. But I missed that it also bans requiring testing for students and employees.   In other words, Ducey is prohibiting colleges and universities from taking any mitigation steps whatsoever .  Schools can't require vaccinations, the one thing that would make masks and testing unnecessary.  They also can't require masks, which would help prevent infected people from spreading the virus in poorly ventilated classrooms.  But they also can't test to identify infected people and keep them away from people who are uninfected.  That's straight-up reckless . Testing doesn't threaten anyone's "freedom....

  The "Three COVIDiots"—Governors Doug Ducey, Ran DeSantis, and Greg Abbott—have a problem. Constituents who vote for them won't take a vaccine that's been proven safe and effective over 367 million times in the U.S. They are suffocating and dying in ICU's.   What to do? You'd think the governors might take steps to increase vaccine uptake. For example, they could require vaccinations or recent negative tests for state employees, like they are doing in California . They could require the same for people to access fun stuff, like they are doing in New York .  But their own politics are denying them this sensible public health option—the only one that will get us out of this nightmare. So they need to think of something else. If only there were some way to save people after their stubbornness and stupidity has already gotten them sick. Antibodies to the Rescue! All three like the idea of antibody treatments, like the one that (unfortunately) saved the life of ...

  Here are updates on three recent Corona-zona posts for your reading enjoyment. Florida School Walks Back Vaccination Quarantine Policy Last week I blogged about a private school in Miami  that established a policy saying kids must be quarantined for a month after a COVID-19 vaccination. They claimed the policy was a result of careful deliberation even though this apparently included no research on whether COVID-19 vaccines can cause "virus shedding" (they can't). Yesterday there came word that they changed their mind after receiving notification from the Florida Department of Education that their policy was being investigated. Wait, a Florida government agency is actually doing something to promote vaccination and public health?!? Somebody tell DeSantis—he must put a stop to this immediately! Florida Surgeon General Nominee is a Mask-hole Too Last Saturday I blogged about an appointment by Governor Ron "Florida Man" DeSantis of an anti-vaxx doctor to be the ...

  A couple weeks ago, I blogged about some pro-pandemic laws passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. They were "do overs" of the legislature's failed attempt to attach similar measures banning mask and vaccine mandates to a budget bill last year. Last Friday (classic timing to limit news coverage) the governor signed another bill tying the hands of his successors (but not himself!) with respect to pandemic emergencies. This one would limit the duration of an emergency to 120 days unless extended by the legislature. That doesn't sound so bad, I suppose. They could have passed a law—which Ducey would probably have also rubber-stamped—prohibiting future governors from declaring any public health emergencies.  But you've got to wonder what these politicians are thinking by passing this and the previous measures. They amount to constraints on what the government can do to combat a disease outbreak.  These measures are reactions to the current emergency...

  Here are some updates on topics recently covered in this blog. No Vax Could Cost You "Unvaccinated individuals have potential to cost the employer more from a health care spend perspective," Symons told CBS MoneyWatch. "They could get COVID and incur expensive hospital costs up to $50,000 for an individual with a tough COVID case." Back in June I blogged a proposal to make people who refuse vaccinations pay their own way if they get COVID-19. It's only fair: If people exercise their freedom to forego the vaccine, they should also be responsible for the consequences of that decision.  As it is they freeride. They can refuse the vaccine for childish and/or political reasons, then depend on those of us who have made the responsible choice to save their bacon with expensive hospital care that everyone pays for through insurance premiums. Incredibly, nobody has rushed to implement my proposal, but insurance providers may be taking a step in that direction. They...

  Last night Colorado Governor Jared Polis appeared on the PBS Newshour talking about pandemic-related matters.  The interviewer noted that Colorado had a rough November but now all the numbers are going in the right direction.   In Arizona we had a relatively good November, but then all the numbers started going in the wrong direction— really wrong.  Arizona  regained the dubious title  it held in July as the worst place in the world for COVID-19.  This made me wonder how the two states compare overall from December to now. So I fired up the CDC Socrata API and ran some queries.  Here are new cases and new deaths per 100K people* seven-day moving average (AZ in blue and CO in orange throughout): As of last weekend, Arizona's case rate is over three times higher, and its death rate was over five times higher than Colorado's!   The question is, why?  Polis attributes it to good behavior of his constituents: "Well, Coloradans a...

I've been doing this blog for just about a year now. The first regular post was January 6, 2021. I'll reflect on that in a few days. Meanwhile, what kind of a media outlet would this be if I didn't do a year-in-review post? Looking back over the year's posts, it's amazing how much has been going on, and how much there potentially is to review. I can't spend all day on a detailed summary.  So I will try to focus on a bird's eye view. Vaccines & Anti-Vaxxers Vaccines have to be the biggest topic on this blog over the past year. Vaccines were very hard to get this time last year. A lot of people wanted them and the distribution was just getting started.  People had to navigate really crappy systems, like one in Arizona , to make reservations. There were " vaccine tourists " who would travel from other states and even countries in an effort to get jabbed.   Then, around March last year, those who wanted the shots had largely gotten them, and incre...

  Today, I offer for your reading enjoyment updates on some topics discussed previously in this blog. Surges I've recently written about worries over new surges .  A piece in today's NYT declares the pandemic out-of-control in Michigan.  Sadly, the governor there has been cowed into tepid pleas for responsible behavior in lieu of concrete action. Hard to blame her after armed covidiots plotted to kidnap and execute her. I hope those assholes are on ventilators right now.   The surge there is blamed on the UK variant, which is apparently taking over the country .  The good news is that the vaccines seem pretty effective against it. The vaccine makers are also working on boosters , expected by the end of the year.    That's good news.  The bad news is that there's a... Vaccine Wall As predicted here a month ago, vaccination rates are hitting a wall. We're starting to run out of people who want the shots. It's starting to show, especially in...

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers for the week ending March 6: Unlike last week (when positive tests showed a very slight increase), this all the numbers are headed in the right direction. However, decreases in cases are notably smaller than in previous weeks, in the single digits or less, even though vaccinated percentages are increasing.   This is especially worrisome given that Governor Ducey  ate the marshmallow on Friday and lifted all capacity limits on businesses. He claimed on Twitter that our mitigation measures are "targeted and data driven," but you have to wonder if this data includes data from the last two weeks.   New cases per 100K 7-day average is essentially flat.  In the graph below from the ASU Biodesign dashboard , there is continued evidence of a stall in Maricopa County, and perhaps the beginning of a new increase. Also something bad is happening in Yavapai County. Could it be one of those variants got loose up there? Or i...

  Arizona has earned a few ignoble distinctions lately. They relate to deaths, stressed care systems, and abysmal leadership. On the deaths front, we have two marks of shame. First, Becker's Hospital Review lists Arizona  as having the second highest death rate in the country. Over the course of the pandemic we've had 0.94 deaths per 100K residents, and averaged 68.4 deaths daily. We're exceeded only by Michigan (1.17 & 117.3). Second, over the last year COVID-19 was the leading cause of death in Arizona. It has killed more people than heart disease or cancer. Dr. Joshua LaBaer, executive director of Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute, pointed out that this doesn't even include people who had conditions that went untreated because our medical system was overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. Speaking of overwhelmed systems, the Arizona Public Health Association says our hospitals are now in "crisis standards of care." That's because they are f...

  Here is the summary of Arizona pandemic numbers for the week just ended: This is really not looking good. New cases for Maricopa County took a big jump, and statewide the increase is double what it was last week . The trend can be most clearly seen in the seven-day average of new cases: I should mention that the value for the 25th is "imputed" (the average of the 24th and the 26th). Data was not available for the 25th due to an outage of the state dashboard.  Anyway, that's a qualitative change on the 24th. It makes the line look more like an exponential curve (where the increase for a given day is more than the increase for the previous day. We are also close to matching the peak in July of last year. That was 3,844 cases (seven-day average) on July 6th. The number yesterday was 3,741.  The way we are going, we will easily exceed the July 2020 peak number this week. Safe to say the numbers did not peak in mid-August as Dr. Scott Gottlieb optimistically predicted at th...

  As you may have heard, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona has been tapped  by  Governor Doug Ducey to jumpstart Arizona's flagging vaccination program. And it needs jumpstarting too: The number of Arizonans vaccinated has increased by only fractions of a percent in each of the last eight weeks. Everybody has been waiting to hear what Carmona is getting paid $400 per hou r to do. We have our answer, and apparently the plan is to reinvent the wheel. According to a recent  interview he gave, Carmona wants to do two things.  First, he wants to depoliticize conversation about the vaccine by avoiding "charged words" like mandates.  Good luck with that one, doc. Not clear how you're going to de-politicize things when your colleague Mr. Byrnovich is grandstanding with his  lawsuit against the Biden administration's vaccine policies. It also doesn't help when your boss is going around calling Biden " dictatorial " over the issue. The second ...

  As I noted on Sunda y, Omicron has finally started doing its dirty work in State 48. As of then, case rates had doubled over the week.   Yesterday AzDHS put out a chart that is getting a lot of attention in the media that shows the same thing: Then also yesterday, AzDHS reported 14,192 new cases. Some outlets, like usnews.com couldn't resist sensationalizing it, claiming it was the highest new number of cases in a year. I heard the same claim in a radio report on KJZZ. Well yeah it was, but the number was high because of holiday reporting snafus. The usnews.com story said this, but it was in one sentence in the third paragraph.  More responsible outlets presented the number in context. For example,  azfamily.com  reported the number but immediately and extensively quoted health officials who explained that the number was an anomaly. But even they couldn't resist a headline with that huge number. Everybody knows those daily counts are not reliable.  ...