COVID Transmission Rate 

Last week I opened with this graphic showing how community spread works. In previous newsletters, I’ve also shared the Rt value. That's the ‘transmissibility rate’ of the virus. If Rt is 1, it means you’re not transmitting your virus to anybody else. The goal is to keep it at 1, or below 1. 

Late in the summer, we had an Rt in the 1.1 - 1.2 range. With the implementation of the mandatory mask rules, the rate slowly came down to around .88 at its lowest. Then school reopened. 

I’ll get more into the responses some of the private student housing companies have given to the public awareness of the outbreak around campus. In the past week, I had some pretty heated exchanges with some of them who felt I should have been giving them more credit for ‘being proactive’ in allowing us to test within their buildings. Here’s the reality check for them. I’m not their marketing arm. They have leased to 90% capacity in their buildings. They did not close pools, fitness centers or common areas until forced to do so by the County. And when I said they put profits ahead of public health, I was right. 

The current Rt around the Main Gate area around campus is just south of 3. That means every kid who’s testing positive for coronavirus is infecting 3 others. When I included this graphic last week, it was meant as an example of how spread works. None of us are happy that it turned out to reflect the reality of what’s happening right now around the UA. 

We have plenty of work on our plates trying to get COVID under control. You read about lots of it every week in this newsletter. And our police have plenty of work on their plates trying to get to calls for service that really do make a difference in containing COVID. While I wasn’t included in the early plans for sending cops into our downtown businesses, getting active in shutting down the idea was pretty much a no-brainer. We need to use our scarce resources effectively. And communication has not been a skill used broadly enough in the past several months. 

Thanks to TPD for their hard work making this a safer community. That work is this week’s blue light recognition. 

Ready for You Reopening 

Embedded in the middle of that letter is the work being done to help downtown businesses get back up and running. The County has invested over $300,000 through the Downtown Tucson Partnership and the Ready for You program, all aimed at making conditions safe for the public to come and support our local businesses once again. The Grand Reopening is coming on October 1st. 

Some of the money has been invested in things such as handwashing stations and PPE but also funding outdoor furniture so we can offer patio seating, signage, and other customer amenities. Each of the businesses involved has, or will be inspected by the Pima County Health people, and when found to have complied with the multiple safety protocols contained in the program, they’ll receive the emblem you see in the letter I wrote. That emblem posted in their window is a sign to you that your health is going to be respected while you’re a customer supporting the business. You really should go to www.pimaready.com and look at all the work these merchants are doing in order to keep you safe. I know you’ll be impressed. 

Every one of our local businesses has struggled since the March shutdown. I’ve been a proponent of many of the measures we’ve taken to help curb the spread of the virus. And I readily acknowledge the tough impact they’ve had on commerce. Since Ducey issued guidelines for a safe reopening this Ready for You work has taken a ton of time and effort on the part of the businesses that are trying to do it right. I certainly hope you make plans to get out and support their efforts during the Grand Reopening. Even if that takes the form of take-out/curbside meals.  

A Quick Note on Bad Actors 

None of any of that should leave you with the impression that I or TPD want you to go easy on reporting the people who are irresponsibly continuing to place the rest of us at risk through their bad behavior. During my phone conversations on Friday, many of us affirmed our commitment to shut down COVID parties, cite and if the situation warrants, pull liquor licenses. A few hard examples may send the message to others that the guidelines issued by the County Health folks are not ‘voluntary’, as is the case with the recommended 14 day shelter in place the UA has asked of students. 

I shared those requirements during my part in a Rincon Heights neighborhood meeting on Monday evening. On Tuesday, the UA Community Relations Department sent the full set of rules out to neighborhoods surrounding campus. And finally, two days later the Mayor’s office did a cut and paste of the rules and reissued them again. Nobody who lives in the area around campus can claim surprise if they’re hosting a COVID party and a cop car pulls up with a book of citations. 

I’ll get into more of the numbers below, but this graphic shows the trend we’re fighting in the campus area: 

Interesting to note is that if you break out on-campus students from off-campus students, the percent of on-campus testing positive is actually higher than those living off campus. That means they’re traveling from campus out into the community and bringing it back to the campus perimeter. It also means that the same thing may happen as students carrying the virus travel out into the wider community. That's called community spread. 

TPD knows some of the businesses that are helping to cause those increases. I’ve shared data on the testing we’re doing at and around the student housing towers on Tyndall. We know where the hot spot is in Tucson right now – it's the UA area. Nobody should act surprised. Everyone should help us contain and reverse this by reporting violations. 

Pima Council on Aging – Fall Prevention 

Quick interlude – PCOA continues its work in support of our seniors. They’re hosting another Zoom meeting this week as a part of National Falls Prevention Week. 

If you’ve got a chronic condition such as diabetes, stroke, or arthritis, that condition may increase your risk of falling due to a loss of function, or simply from inactivity. More than 80% of older adults have at least one such condition. I pulled these statistics from the National Council on Aging site: 

What’s Happening in Colleges and Universities Across the Country? 

I’ll touch on the recommended shelter in place the UA requested, but first, here are some recent examples of how other colleges and universities across the Country are responding to COVID. 

• U. Wisconsin La Crosse shut down all in-person classes and is going to online for the next two weeks. 

• It gets more interesting in the State of Wisconsin. The NY Times studied cities where cases are increasing most quickly. There are 7 of them in Wisconsin listed in the top 18 nationwide. Every one of them has an active branch of the U. Wisconsin system. Here’s the list: 

  Whitewater, Madison, La Crosse, Platteville, Eau Claire, Stevens Point, and Green Bay are in the top 20 metro areas where new cases are rising the fastest in the last week, and in each of them classes resumed recently. 

• Northern Illinois U went to online classes last week. They blamed off-campus activities in the uptick in coronavirus cases. 

• 23 Greek houses at Michigan State U were ordered by the Lansing Health Department to quarantine for 14 days. Partying in large groups was cited as the cause of COVID outbreaks around their campus. 

• U. Colorado at Boulder issued a 14 day quarantine. 70% of their new cases since late August are among the campus community. 

• Grand Valley State in Michigan ordered a 14 day quarantine of its students. This screenshot from the Detroit News: 

Early last week I was involved in a contentious conference call with owners of some of the towers. They were not happy that their ‘product’ was shown in the media and ‘outed’ for the high infection rates they’re experiencing. Evidently they felt I should have given them accolades for having allowed us into their lobby to offer the free tests to residents. I made two points in return; one, I’m not their marketing arm. My responsibility was, and remains to alert the public if there’s a public health issue in our community. There is – in their buildings – I shared that with you. Second, the tests were free to the management and to the students. You paid for them with tax money. So far Pima County has poured nearly $500,000 into testing the private apartment complexes around campus. Nobody else has shared in that expense. Not the companies, not the UA, not the City, not the students. We owe a debt of thanks to Pima County for working with my office as we facilitated these tests. 

On Sunday evening we were back at the towers. This time we set up shop immediately out in front of two of the high rises where we know there are students who need to be tested, isolated, and have their friends traced.  

Note to tower ownership – you build these apartment complexes in college cities all over the nation. You charge in the neighborhood of $1,000 per month, per bed. There are roughly 500 beds in each of the buildings. Do the math - $500K monthly in each building, and you’ve got an attitude about us paying to have your tenants tested so this can be a safe community. Save the attitude for someone in your corporate hierarchy who cares. 

Test results from Sunday will be shared with the students, Pima County Health, and the State. It will show up on some of the dashboards I use to help keep you up to speed. The only certainty is that it will validate that the UA area is the community hot spot for coronavirus infections right now.  

Here are some of the pop-up testing opportunities Pima County has coming this week. You are encouraged to pre-register, although walk-ups are ok, too. They’re open to the public – and they’re all free. Please use this link to register https://www.doineedacovid19test.com/ . Select Arizona and Tucson. It will make your trip quicker. 

If you’re around the UA, the one closest to campus is the site on University Blvd. You’ll find the pop-up on University Boulevard on the north side of the street in the metered parking area south and west of Pei Wei.   

I spoke – virtually – to a UA class last week. One of the points I made was that back in March, Arizona had 424 COVID cases, and Pima County had 42. Those numbers caused Ducey to issue his first Executive Order shutting down certain businesses, schools closed and the UA campus emptied. Now we’re at over 1,300 positive cases just around campus in the past 10 days. That context is important to keep in mind as you participate in discussions with friends and family about how this is being addressed by the various players. 

COVID Funding for the Arts 

This pandemic is hurting everyone. I shared with the UA class yesterday that some of the groups we’ve tried to help with CARES Act money (by the way, that stands for Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act) include small businesses, caregiving businesses, families, non-profits, people having trouble with water bills, transit riders, people in need of WiFi, seniors, and plenty of others yet to come. One of those ‘yet to come’ includes artists and art organizations. 

We allocated just over $700K that will go to support the arts community. Our partners at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona will be facilitating the distribution. You need to apply by October 5th in order to be considered, so get your application in. These will be grants, not loans. The purpose is to provide emergency assistance to help keep you in operation. It’s for things such as rent, utilities, and other essentials you may be struggling with due to COVID.  

AFTSA has already begun accepting applications. Check out the program at this link - hit Control and click. AFTSA 

Pima County and Off-Campus Protocols 

Beginning near the end of last week you may have noticed an increase in the number of COVID infections being reported by the State. Some of that is due to the UA and ASU having been reopened. I touched on the UA numbers above. But another reason for the increase in numbers is that the State just decided to include antigen test results in their data. Pima County has been advocating that they do so all along, saying that by ignoring those data, the State was undercounting COVID spread. For whatever reason, common sense finally prevailed in Phoenix. 

I’ve been critical of the way antigen tests have been used on campus. That is not to say that those tests have no role in tracking the virus, but I’ve seen a couple of flaws in how it is being used. One is that at least some of the tests are self-administered. That’s what I did over at the North Rec center, along with others who went there for testing. It’s a nasal swab and I’m pretty sure most people aren’t going to ‘swab’ the Q-tip as deep into their head as a medical person would. That alone diminishes somewhat the reliability of the test.  

In addition, the antigen test isn’t supposed to be used as the sole test for diagnosing COVID. These are comments I came across in a September 2nd article published by the Association of Public Health Laboratories (www.aphl.org) 

The last column is the increase in daily counts for Pima County. You see it change from 93, then the UA effect starts, and finally, the antigen effect ends the week with the numbers over 700. These anomalies are another reason we need to look at trends, not daily totals. The trend is up. The cause is living around the UA campus. 

During our little dust-up with the tower management, both I and Pima County Health indicated to them that next steps could include closures. Earlier I shared with you the 5 steps that are now in place during this 14 day trial period. But it’s important to also keep in mind that if things don’t change, the County health authority has these cards left that it can play: 

Free Mask Distribution – Adult and Kid Sizes 

The City is hosting a couple more mask give-aways. This time though, we’ll have both adult and kid-sized masks. I’ve got some for kids here at the Ward 6 office if you need some for say a classroom, daycare or church/synagogue/mosque setting. Just email us and we can make arrangements to get you some. 

The City-sponsored sites are being staffed with our Parks team. Here are the remaining scheduled distribution locations and times: 

• Tuesday, Sept. 22, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Parks and Recreation Administration, 900 S. Randolph Way  

• Thursday, Sept. 24, 5-7 p.m. William M. Clements Center, 8155 E. Poincianna Dr. 

These masks are free, and they’re the cloth, reusable kind. Don’t be shy – we want you to have the face covering so you and everyone around you stay safe. 

Surprise COVID Quiz 

I watched an NBC segment last week where they were interviewing the ‘person on the street’ about COVID numbers. Those numbers are on the news every night, but their point was we’ve gotten used to seeing the numbers escalate and may have lost track of the real impact this virus has had on us since March. That’s in terms of both sickness, and in lost lives. I checked myself and found that I’m as guilty as all of the people they interviewed (not to the degree some were though – the level of lack of awareness is sometimes pretty stunning.) 

Test yourself. Quick, how many cases have we had this year, and how many deaths? First nationwide, then in the State. I’ll share the numbers at the end of the newsletter. 

Refugee Support 

A couple of weeks ago the International Refugee Assistance Project out of New York contacted me and others on the M&C requesting that we sign onto a letter that is going to Trump related to refugees. The letter is pretty long so I won’t reprint it all here, but the gist of it is that refugees are valuable members of our community, they’re fleeing some life-threatening situations, and it’s wrong for D.C. to reduce the number of refugees who will be allowed to come here for a new start. I signed. I know both Paul’s on the M&C did, as well as Lane and Regina. 

Every day nearly 37,000 people are displaced from their homes as a result of violence, persecution, and threats to their lives. That’s every day. The UN Refugee Agency currently lists around 26 million people worldwide as refugees, and ½ of them are children. Last year Trump dropped our refugee welcome mat down to 18,000. That’s the lowest it has been since we’ve had a national refugee program. 

Our letter is intended to get that number increased. The whole asylum process needs reform, but if the number is capped at 18,000, we are sentencing millions of people to their death. To put that number into context, we assisted more than that through the Benedictine in the few months we operated that center. Trump is setting a cap that will impact every State and will impact us for the entire fiscal year. 

If you’d like to get connected with the work IRAP is doing, go to www.refugeerights.org and I’m sure you’ll find a way to plug in. 

Two COVID Links 

Back to COVID. This link is what the Arizona Department of Health asks you to use for reporting businesses that are not abiding by the CDC/State guidelines for reopening. I mentioned above the work TPD and UAPD are doing. But without some of your observations, they will be on a hunt and peck mission and not on the kind that removes liquor licenses and effectively shuts down bad actors.  

The standards include what you’d expect: masks, distance and avoiding large crowds. Here’s that link:  azhealth.gov/compliancecovid19 

And please remember, Ducey and State Health Director Christ encouraged people to get a flu shot as soon as possible. For the first time in my life, I got one last week. Flu season runs through March, but with COVID lingering, getting the vaccine may prove more valuable this year than in the past. 

Finally, this isn’t a ‘new’ link, but it’s one worth repeating, given the current issues. The Red Tag unit is still operating and now has COVID as an extra motivating tool. Report violations to RedTag@tucsonaz.gov. This alerts the City Red Tag unit to large parties. This coming week there will also be a special emphasis – shared between the UAPD and TPD – on the areas immediately around campus. 

Last week Tripadvisor announced that our own Presidio San Agustin was named as a 2020 Travelers’ Choice Best of the Best award winner. That means it ranks in the top 10% of all attractions. It’s a feather in the cap of all of the staff and volunteers who work to keep the place running. 

If you haven’t visited, you should. It’s located at 196 N. Court. It’s a reconstruction of the original Tucson Presidio that was built in 1775. They’ve got an original 150-year-old row house, a 2,000-year-old prehistoric pit house, and daily they have reenactments of ceremonies that took place ‘back in the day.’ 

The Presidio non-profit is working to share a unique first hand experience of our local history. It’d be a great showing of support to have you and your family stop by. You can find their hours of operation and other information on this Presidio link:  https://www.yelp.com/biz/presidio-san-agustin-del-tucson-tucson. 

Harvard COVID Update 

It’s time to check in and see what the Harvard Global Institute is saying now that school is open and the State has changed it’s method of counting coronavirus. Last week the Pima County numbers jumped a little bit on the Harvard chart. They showed us having a 9.2 daily case rate per 100,000 people, and our 7 day moving average was 96.1. Both of those are increases from the previous week. Here’s where we stand a week later: 

The positivity rate in Pima County is over 8%. In speaking with some of the County health folks I hear that some of the private off-campus apartments they’re testing in have positivity rates in excess of 50%.  

This is the dashboard graphic from the State Department of Education on whether we should be opening public K-12 schools in Pima County. 

 The recommendation is that we’re meeting all of the benchmarks, so it’s fine to reopen. I’d make two points. One is that benchmark #3 (”hospital visits”) is not germane to reopening our public schools. They need to rethink that as a measuring tool for young kids interacting with each other, and their teachers/staff. The other point I’d make is that their data is not trustworthy. It’s dated, and it does not match up with the data we’re getting from other parts of the State Department of Health site. Example – above I shared that the Pima County positivity rate is north of 8%. This graphic shoes it under 6%. And that’s now nearly 3 week old data, not something we should be posting for parents and teachers to make decisions on. And 753 new cases during the week of August 30th? We know that number has spiked in the past couple of weeks. The State should not be leaving old data on its site for people to be misled into poor decisions. 

I include the maps and other graphs in these newsletters every week. This time I wanted to slow down and try to put it all into a context so we all pause and think about just how serious this really is. Please model mask wearing, social distancing, staying in small groups and helping to slow this down. In April we spoke of ‘flattening the curve.’ That metaphor is a memory for the ‘Way-back machine’ (you boomers can relate to that reference.) 

The students who are trying to do it right tell us of their ‘friend bubbles’. Many of them are on the right side of this. It’s their living conditions that are placing them behind the 8 ball.  

Here’s your weekly update on the Statewide COVID numbers, by County. From last week’s newsletter:

And for your own research – these links: 

The national CDC site: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/index.html 

For the NY Times data sets, use this link:    

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/upshot/five-ways-to-monitor-coronavirus-outbreak-us.html 

And you can find the Harvard data on this site: Harvard Global Health Institute Key Metrics   

The State Department of Health site is at this link: www.azdhs.gov. 

And track the advice on public schools through this link: https://www.azed.gov/communications/2020/03/10/guidance-to-schools-on-covid-19/  You can find all the dashboard information at the “School Reopening Public Health Benchmarks” spot.  

And here’s the UA daily update link. www.covid.arizona.edu. When it opens, click ‘See Latest Updates’ and it’ll take you to a screen with the updated data.