Today brings more encouraging news for those fully vaccinated against COVID-19 -- and another reason for everyone else to get their shot. New guidance from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says fully vaccinated people can resume activities indoors as well as outdoors without wearing a mask or physically distancing. The CDC notes, [...]
Since mid-December, when the first Pfizer vaccines reached Arizona, ADHS has been working with our local county health departments and tribes to get the COVID-19 vaccine distributed to vulnerable Arizonans as quickly as possible. Arizonans living in long-term care facilities and those 65 years of age and older were prioritized first for vaccination because of [...]
Today, our dashboards will show the addition of approximately 625 cases across three counties (Gila County - 270, Graham County - 142, Navajo County - 213). While these will appear as “new cases” for Friday’s case counts, these represent infections from throughout the pandemic, with 73% of the cases testing positive during the fall/winter peak [...]
Since mid-December, when the first Pfizer vaccines reached Arizona, ADHS has been working with our local county health departments and tribes to get the COVID-19 vaccine distributed to vulnerable Arizonans as quickly as possible. To further this goal, Arizona recently adopted a hybrid model prioritizing those at highest risk due to age and our frontline [...]
It has been almost a year since ADHS launched our COVID-19 dashboard. Since then, our dashboard has undergone many enhancements and has had new sections added. Our reporting regarding this disease continues to evolve as we collect additional data and learn about which data elements are most useful to understand how COVID-19 is impacting Arizonans. [...]
Over the past few months, you may have heard me call COVID-19 vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel. As more and more Arizonans get the Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccines, we will start to see life returning to normal. That light is getting brighter by the day. New guidance released [...]
Earlier this week, State Farm Stadium hosted President Biden and Vice President Harris for a virtual tour of our vaccination site. Arizona’s state-operated vaccination sites have been identified as a national model. Since Jan. 11, the two state-operated sites have accounted for more than 20% of the total vaccines administered to date, statewide. In addition, [...]
This week, Arizona celebrated the milestone of more than 1 million doses of vaccine administered by the state, counties and health care providers. While this is a significant achievement, vaccination sites have capacity to vaccinate even more Arizonans if additional vaccine doses are made available by federal partners. Since Arizona is a “home rule” state [...]
On Monday I had the honor of taking President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on a virtual tour of our State Farm Stadium vaccination site in Glendale. During the tour, the vice president raised an issue that many people share. Here’s a lightly edited version of our exchange: THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hi, Doctor. [...]
Throughout the COVID-19 response, our goal has been to provide real-time data on all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including cases, hospitalizations, laboratory results, and vaccines. Ensuring rapid distribution of vaccine to high-risk groups is a critical component of public health during a pandemic response. Surveillance of vaccine administration data is especially important when trying [...]
