Arizona health department reports 3,536 new coronavirus cases, 4 deaths
Jul 5, 2020, 8:30 AM | Updated: 12:40 pm
(Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
(Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information, news and updates about the coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond for Sunday, July 5.
PHOENIX — The Arizona health department reported 3,536 new coronavirus cases and four deaths Sunday morning.
That brings the state’s documented totals to 98,089 COVID-19 cases and 1,809 fatalities.
The single-day pandemic highs were 4,878 cases and 88 deaths, both reported Wednesday.
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.
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The daily reports present data after the state receives statistics and compiles them, which can lag by several days. They aren’t meant to represent the actual activity over the past 24 hours.
With cases rising and hospitals filling up, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday put the state’s reopening plans into reverse, shutting down bars, nightclubs, gyms, movie theaters and water parks for at least a month and pushing back the start of on-campus K-12 schooling for at least two weeks.
Ducey said to expect case counts to keep increasing for several weeks before the impact of the new policies shows up in the data.
New cases have been increasing at a faster rate than testing has been increasing, indicating community spread of a virus that has no impact on some people and is seriously debilitating or fatal for others. Infected people who don’t show symptoms are still capable of spreading the coronavirus.
The positive percentage of PCR tests, which detect active infections, continues to soar.
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There have been more than 603,000 PCR tests given in Arizona, including 14,844 added to the total Sunday. Of the total, 13.1% have come back positive as of Sunday. The positive rate was 12.9% a day earlier and just 6.7% on the last day of May.
The weekly positive rate for PCR tests has risen every week since the week starting May 10, when it was 5%.
Of the PCR samples collected last week that have been processed, a pandemic-high 20% have come back positive. So far this week, that figure is 21%.
ICU bed usage reached 89% in Arizona on Saturday, according to the latest state data, with the available supply at 178 beds. Thursday saw the largest usage rate (91%) in the state.
Overall inpatient bed usage was at 84%, 2 percentage point lower than the pandemic high last seen June 26.
The capacity data on the health department’s website doesn’t include surge beds on the ready for emergency use.
The number of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients currently in Arizona hospitals reached another all-time high at 3,182 on Saturday, when 1,465 COVID-19 patients were seen in emergency rooms.
The capacity data on the health department’s website doesn’t include surge beds on the ready for emergency use.
In other notable hospital data from Saturday related to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients:
- 531 were on ventilators, an increase of 118 from the previous day.
- 821 were in ICU beds, a record-high and an increase of 25 from the previous day.
- 458 were discharged, 33 more than the previous day and 36 more than the previous high on Wednesday.
