Arizona reports 1,835 new COVID-19 cases, 60 more deaths Thursday
Mar 11, 2021, 8:27 AM | Updated: 10:59 pm
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
This is a regularly updated story with the latest information about the coronavirus and its impact in Arizona and beyond for March 11, 2021.
PHOENIX – Arizona public health officials on Thursday reported 1,835 new coronavirus cases, ending a streak of three consecutive sub-1,000 days, and 60 additional deaths from COVID-19.
The daily case report was the second-largest since Feb. 20.
The state’s documented totals were updated to 830,465 coronavirus infections and 16,464 fatalities, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services’ COVID-19 dashboard.
Key state metrics used to gauge the extent of the pandemic continue to improve and are the lowest they’ve been in months, and more than 20% of Arizona’s population has received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
The ADHS dashboard showed that 2,306,822 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the state, a day-over-day increase of 55,459, with 1,471,365 people (20.5% of the state’s population) having received at least one shot.
The number of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 inpatients in the state’s hospitals increased by 11 overnight to 879 on Wednesday, the second-fewest since Oct. 31. The number of ICU beds used by COVID-19 patients dipped to 250, the fewest since Nov. 6.
Arizona’s weekly percent positivity for COVID-19 diagnostic testing, an indicator of how much the virus is spreading in the community, reached a five-month low last week but has ticked up this week.
Of the 21,006 people tested so far this week, 6% received a positive result. The rate for 77,739 people last week was 5%, the lowest since early October.
Official positivity 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 and the results are documented by the state.
The Arizona health department’s daily updates present case, death and testing 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 hospitalization data posted each morning is reported electronically the previous evening by hospitals across the state, as required under executive order.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, 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.
Diagnostic testing is available at hundreds of locations across Arizona and should be sought out by anybody with symptoms or who may have been exposed to an infected person. Information about locations, schedules and registration can be found on the Department of Health Services website.
For details about statewide COVID-19 vaccine availability, the ADHS website has a vaccine-finder page with a map of locations and information about registration and eligibility.
Below are Thursday’s latest developments about the coronavirus pandemic from around the state, country and world:
- President Joe Biden used his first prime-time address to outline his plan Thursday night to make all adults vaccine-eligible by May 1 and get the country “closer to normal” by the Fourth of July.
- The Navajo Nation reported 8 new coronavirus cases and seven additional deaths, bringing the documented totals to 29,911 infections and 1,212 fatalities.
- President Joe Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion relief package that he said will help the U.S. defeat the coronavirus and nurse the economy back to health.
- CVS said it has doubled the number of Arizona pharmacy locations offering COVID-19 vaccinations to 18.
- When the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic one year ago Thursday, it did so only after weeks of resisting the term and maintaining that the highly infectious virus could still be stopped.
- Globally, there were about 118.17 million COVID-19 cases and 2.62 million deaths as of Thursday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University research. The figures for the U.S. were around 29.16 million cases and 529,000 deaths.