Arizona reports 3,520 new coronavirus cases, 36 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 Wednesday, July 8.

PHOENIX – The Arizona health department reported 3,520 new coronavirus cases and 36 additional deaths on Wednesday morning.

That brought the state’s totals to 108,614 COVID-19 cases and 1,963 fatalities.

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. They aren’t meant to represent the actual activity over the past 24 hours.

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.

Arizona’s weekly positive rate for PCR tests, which diagnose active coronavirus infections, has risen every week since early May, when it was 5%. For the PCR tests given last week that have been processed, the positive rate was up to 22%. The reported PCR positive rate is 25% so far this week.

There have been more than 640,000 PCR tests given in Arizona, including 12,211 added to the total Wednesday. Of the tests processed, the positive rate was up to 13.7%. It was 13.6% on Tuesday, 12% on June 30, and 6.7% on May 31.

Arizona’s ICU beds were 91% filled on Tuesday, the highest mark of the pandemic, leaving 145 ICU beds available in the state. About 56% of the ICU patients were confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases.

Overall, more people were checked into Arizona’s hospitals Tuesday than at any time during the pandemic, with 6,784 inpatient beds filled.

However, because of a recent increase in the total number of beds, the inpatient capacity was 85% full, 1 point below the previously reported high.

Fifty percent of the inpatients — a single-day high of 3,421 — are confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases.

In other notable hospital data from Tuesday related to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients:

• 570 were on ventilators, an increase of 26 from the previous day, which had been the highest number seen.
• 871 were in ICU beds, an increase of two from the previous day, which had been the highest number seen.
• 543 were discharged, a daily high that beat the previous mark by 68.
• 121 intubations for respiratory distress were performed, the most in a single day.

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

• Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez announced 40 additional coronavirus cases and three related deaths among the Navajo Nation.
• Arizona State University’s Dr. Joshua LaBaer and Dr. Deborah Birx — who is coordinating the White House coronavirus response — indicated in separate statements that Arizona’s daily COVID-19 cases are starting to show signs of leveling off.
• Two Arizona organizations are getting a combined $850,000 from the state’s Crisis Contingency and Safety Net Fund, Gov. Doug Ducey announced. The Arizona Small Business Association is getting $600,000 to launch its Live Local training program, and Special Olympics Arizona is getting $250,000 to help keep participants engaged during the COVID-19 pandemic and keep them safe when activities resume.
• All beaches, boat launches and associated parks in Bullhead City will be closed on weekends through Labor Day because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Mayor Tom Brady.
• The New York Times reported that Arizona’s coronavirus outbreak was the worst in the world based on new cases per million residents over the past seven days. Florida, South Carolina and Bahrain were next on the list.

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