Arizona reports 3,748 new coronavirus cases, 144 more deaths

This is a regularly updated story with the latest information, news and updates about the coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond for Saturday, July 25.

PHOENIX – The Arizona health department reported 3,748 new coronavirus cases and 144 additional deaths on Saturday morning.

That brought the state’s documented totals to 160,041 COVID-19 infections and 3,286 fatalities.

The 144 new deaths are the most reported in a single day without death certificate matching in the state of Arizona.

The Arizona Department of Health Services has been providing case and testing updates on its website each morning. The dashboard includes, among other information, testing trends, updated hospital capacity and a ZIP code map of cases.

The daily reports present data after the state receives statistics and confirms them, which can lag by several days or more. They don’t represent the actual activity over the past 24 hours.

The rate of new Arizona coronavirus cases has shown signs of slowing in recent weeks following the implementation of face mask requirements in many areas — including all of Maricopa County — and statewide executive orders to close businesses such as bars and gyms and to restrict restaurant occupancy.

Those moves were made after the state became a global hot spot for the coronavirus, which has no impact on some people and is seriously debilitating or fatal for others. Infected people without symptoms – which include but are not limited to cough, fever and difficulty breathing — are capable of spreading the virus.

Arizona’s weekly positive rate for diagnostic PCR tests, which indicates how much the virus is spreading, is on pace to fall for the third consecutive week.

For the 20,792 tests reported, the positive rate is 14.6%.

The weekly positive rate was 5% in early May and started climbing after Arizona’s stay-at-home order expired. It peaked at 21% the week starting June 28 but had dipped to 15% last week, still much higher than health officials want to see.

Weekly rates are based on when the samples are taken, not when they are reported, so the percentage for recent weeks can fluctuate as labs get caught up on testing.

Inpatient beds were 84% full Saturday, 1 percentage point lower than the previous day. The 83% figure seen Monday was the lowest since July 6.

ICU beds were 86% full, 1 percentage point lower than the previous day.

The inpatient occupancy rate peaked July 9-10 at 88%, and the ICU occupancy rate topped out at 91% on July 7.

That rate was down to 84% on Saturday.

Hospital bed data on the health department website does not include surge beds that have not been activated but can potentially increase capacity.

Below are Saturday’s latest developments about the coronavirus pandemic from around the state, country and world:

• • Navajo Nation reported 69 new coronavirus cases and zero deaths. It marked 30 consecutive days of less than 100 new cases in the community. A total of 8,837 COVID-19 cases and 434 deaths have been reported.
  • A county-by-county breakdown of the 144 new deaths showed Maricopa County led all with 75. Apache, Navajo and Yuma counties all surpassed double-digits, according to ABC15’s Garrett Archer.

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