Eight Arizona counties, including Pima County, have high COVID-19 community levels in the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This means masks are recommended for public indoor settings. The other counties with high COVID-19 community levels are Apache, Cochise, Gila, Greenlee, La Paz, Navajo, and Yuma. All other counties, including [...]
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study has found that the Omicron booster provided significant additional protection against symptomatic COVID-19 illness in people who had received at least two doses of a previous COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC notes that COVID-19 spread has increased during the last two winters. And Arizona cases have increased [...]
Being unable to leave your home shouldn’t be a barrier to getting vaccinated against COVID-19 or updating your protection through a booster dose thanks to programs offered by ADHS and others. Complementing programs offered by the Maricopa Department of Public Health and the Pima County Health Department, ADHS Office of Health Equity provides in-home vaccination [...]
When the last state-run COVID-19 mass-vaccination site closed last June, with millions of Arizonans already protected, former ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ noted that in many ways the hardest work was just beginning. The vaccine was and continues to be widely available around the state. The focus for ADHS, local health departments, and others had [...]
As Omicron rapidly emerged as Arizona’s dominant COVID-19 variant in December, vaccines continued offering robust protection against hospitalization and death. That’s according to a new report detailing COVID-19 variant trends and the latest update to our report on COVID-19 outcomes by vaccination status. The new report on variants shows week-by-week how Omicron pushed aside the [...]
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given full approval to the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for use in those ages 18 and older. Moderna joins the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which the FDA gave full approval to last August for use in ages 16 and older. Ages 5 to 15 are eligible for the Pfizer vaccine under [...]
There’s an important addition in today’s update on COVID-19 outcomes by vaccination status: During November, unvaccinated people were 17.5 times more likely to be hospitalized from COVID-19 than the fully vaccinated. Hospitalization data provides a deeper look at the numbers in this twice-monthly report posted at the top of the ADHS COVID-19 Data Dashboard. Also [...]
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has important findings about COVID-19 breakthrough cases among fully vaccinated individuals: It’s extremely rare for a breakthrough case to lead to severe outcomes. When a severe outcome such as intensive care admission does occur from a breakthrough case, the individual is almost certain [...]
As is the case around the country, Arizona is seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases amid the spread of the extraordinarily contagious Omicron variant. The COVID-19 Cases by Day graph on the ADHS COVID-19 Dashboard shows a surge beginning two days after Christmas, with more than 7,000 cases and even 8,000-plus cases on days for [...]
Like many of you, I remain concerned about how the extraordinarily contagious Omicron variant may affect our healthcare system. Arizona’s hospitals are already strained by COVID-19 patients, the vast majority of whom are unvaccinated. Here are some things on my mind as we continue learning about this fast-spreading variant: Omicron is likely to cause more [...]
