Winter Holidays: Impacting COVID-19 Cases in Arizona
There are many impacts that the holidays can have on COVID-19 in Arizona. With people traveling and gathering with loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving, we anticipate the cases and the need for hospitalizations to continue to increase over the next few weeks. We also know that the holidays can have an impact on our public health system, resulting in the [...]
Syndromic Surveillance and COVID-Like Illness
Public health utilizes several surveillance tools to monitor the spread of disease throughout a community. These tools, like case reporting, laboratory reporting, and syndromic surveillance, generate many of the data points that are displayed on our COVID-19 data dashboard. These surveillance tools are also used to monitor the metrics we use to set business reopening status and recommend education delivery [...]
COVID-19 Safety For Our Winter Visitors
The arrival of winter visitors is a welcome indication of cooler days ahead. If you are a returning visitor or discovering our state’s cooler months, welcome! We want you to be safe and healthy while you're here, and we need your help to protect everyone this winter. With COVID-19 still active in our communities, I also want to make sure [...]
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 [...]