Clarifications Regarding the School Benchmarks
Aside from a child’s home, no other setting has more influence on a child’s health and well-being than their school. Schools provide education instruction, support the development of social and emotional skills, facilitate physical activity, and address nutrition needs. On October 22, ADHS released updates to the school benchmarks. For details, visit my blog post School Benchmarks Update Highlights State-Counties [...]
School Benchmarks Update Highlights State-Counties Partnership
As a mom of young kids attending in-person learning, nothing is more important to me than the health of our kids and the safety of our schools. Close coordination across the public health system and partnering with our education experts is critical to an effective response and safely returning kids to the classroom. The Arizona Department of Health Services has [...]
Arizona COVID-19 data trending upward: Don’t let down your guard
Global and national COVID-19 cases have increased over the last several weeks, and now that trend is occurring in Arizona, too. While our state is not currently experiencing a surge to the degree other locations are experiencing right now, we have recently seen a shift of COVID-19 spread in the state in the wrong direction. During this time, the Arizona [...]
Arizona’s COVID-19 Vaccine Plan
Although a COVID-19 vaccine is not yet available, public health professionals across Arizona and around the country are already hard at work laying the groundwork for efficient and inclusive allocation and distribution of the vaccine. We don’t know when and how the vaccine is coming, quite yet. But based on lessons learned with the 2009 H1N1 vaccine distribution and ADHS’ [...]
Don’t let COVID-19 haunt your Halloween
I’m guessing that your children, like mine, have asked the same panicked questions as Oct. 31 approaches: Will there be trick-or-treating this Halloween? What about other fun? To these kiddos and their parents, I’m pleased to say that trick-or-treating can be done safely, but it’s no time to let down your guard since COVID-19 is still active in our communities. [...]
COVID-19 Hospitalizations In Arizona
As we continue to monitor the COVID-19 pandemic, we track important outcomes to identify the course of the disease. Hospitalization is one of those metrics that can provide additional information to public health officials to target interventions and identify groups at higher risk for more severe disease. We track hospitalization in several ways: Using syndromic surveillance to identify hospitalizations due [...]