The coronavirus outbreak in Arizona is going very badly

[Mike 03]

Business Insider
Isaac Scher 38 minutes ago

Excerpt:

"It's spreading like wildfire," Rep. Greg Stanton, an Arizona Democrat, said on social media Sunday. "Arizona is the new national hotspot for COVID-19 with more than 4,400 new cases in just the last 72 hours. Per capita, Arizona's infection rate is now more than three times higher than New York state."

By Sunday, Arizona's infection rate reached 60.5 per 100,000 people, compared to New York's 12.5 per 100,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The Grand Canyon State has more than 37,500 cases as of Sunday.

Speaking last week, Will Humble, the former director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, said the surge in new cases was "definitely related" to the lifted stay-at-home order. While the order was still in place, around 5% of statewide COVID-19 tests were positive. By early June, the rate more than doubled to 12%. The state doesn't require people to wear masks.

"This is not an abstract number of cases," Dr. Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told NPR. "We're seeing people pile into intensive care units," which the largest hospital in the state, Banner Health, echoed last week in a statement.

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-coronavirus-outbreak-in-arizona-is-going-very-badly-2020-6