As COVID-19 continues to spread in the United States, the CDC has recommended wearing cloth face coverings in public when physical distancing is difficult to maintain. Out and about in our communities, many Arizonans are following these recommendations. Studies continue to be published showing how COVID-19 can be spread through speaking, coughing, sneezing -- including by people [...]
May 17-23, 2020, is Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Week. This year’s theme for EMS Week, “Ready Today, Preparing For Tomorrow” is appropriate given our current statewide response to the COVID-19 pandemic. EMS providers (including EMTs, paramedics, emergency nurses and physicians, 9-1-1 dispatchers, and EMS educators) have been on the front line of Arizona’s COVID-19 response since [...]
There are now multiple types of COVID-19 tests available, including Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and serology (antibody testing). Both test types are becoming increasingly available in our communities. The PCR test is a diagnostic test that looks for the presence of viral nucleic acids and tells if a person is currently infected with the virus. [...]
Today’s dashboard includes an important update to the COVID-19 data including notable changes related to the identification of COVID-19 deaths in Arizona. Surveillance of deaths is an important component of any communicable disease investigation. This surveillance can provide key information about risk factors and the severity of a disease, especially when dealing with a novel [...]
We appreciate the work of the talented professionals who assisted our team of public health professionals and experienced epidemiologists in developing a state model. The department established the partnership to provide an additional model for consideration. This model was completed on April 20, 2020. With months of data now available, we have shifted our primary [...]
ADHS has worked in partnership with laboratories and healthcare providers across Arizona to increase COVID-19 testing capacity. Increased testing is now possible due to greater availability of testing supplies, which weren’t available earlier in the course of this outbreak. More information about testing gives public health a better understanding of how Arizona has been impacted [...]
Arizona is actively working on several components to ensure the health of our communities as we gradually begin allowing services to resume in our state. One of public health’s core preparedness responsibilities is the ability to trace contacts of individuals who test positive for COVID-19. By increasing testing capacity to identify new cases and having [...]
The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) has been closely monitoring COVID-19 spread throughout Arizona. As of today, we have had cases confirmed in all 15 counties for a total of 5,769 cases. Our commercial labs, hospital labs, and Arizona State Public Health Laboratory continue to provide diagnostic testing and have performed 58,750 tests to [...]
Since December 2019, when we first heard about cases of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, the Arizona public health system has been closely monitoring COVID-19 on an international, national, and local level. Mitigating the spread of COVID-19, as well as responding to the impacts of the virus, remains our highest priority. Since our first [...]
Today, we released significant enhancements to our COVID-19 dashboard. The new dashboard includes a number of improvements: Larger graphics, with the ability to drill down through filtering some of the data at a more granular level. Information about hospitalizations and deaths, as well as information about hospitalized cases in Arizona. Case counts broken down by [...]
