This evening at 6pm, the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center (TCCC) will be hosting an important community event related to the rise in anti-Asian hate crime incidents we’ve all seen on the news. The TPD Street Crime Interdiction Unit will also be taking part in the roundtable.
We in the City of Tucson pride ourselves on being welcoming to people from all over the world. And yet it would be naïve to think our city is exempt from the sorts of vile actions against our Asian brothers, sisters, friends and loved ones that we see on the nightly news. The timing and importance of this roundtable is not to be understated.
Although this is being hosted by the TCCC, it was planned with input from multiple other local groups representing diverse members of our Asian community. Please email info@tucsonchinese.org for more information about signing into the event. I appreciate the input from my friend Jasmine and the hard work organizers put into this event. It’s sad that it’s necessary – and yet, it is.
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Ready, Set, Rec Van Schedule
We’ve started some general discussion about when to resume meeting in person for our Mayor and Council meetings. Some of our park facilities are reopening – all with COVID precautions in place – and the COVID numbers continue to head in a good direction. So, fingers crossed, we’re seeing good signs of progress. We just saw a lot of behavior during spring break that could set us back. More on that below.
Here’s the schedule for the Ready, Set, Rec van for its visits to Ward 6 parks. It comes with games and activities geared to all age groups. All of the equipment is cleaned and is safe to use, and each van comes staffed with our parks workers to help guide the activities. Please take a look at the schedule, find the park in your area and pay the van a visit when it arrives. The weather is perfect, we’re all itching to get back outdoors and to see other people – Ready, Set, Rec is a great way to ease back into all of that.
You can also see the schedule online at www.tucsonaz.gov/parks/readysetrec, or use these links for Instagram and Facebook @ReadySetRec.
Vaccine Update
I’m going to open with a game of make believe. This is from Ducey’s newest Executive Order (EO) – the one from last Thursday that opens everything up.
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Make believe 1 – that today is May 1st and every American has been vaccinated.
Make believe 2 – that Arizona has fully vaccinated our residents
Make believe 3 – that just because Ducey is making vaccinations available to anyone over 16 years, appointments are simple, immediate and everyone who’s eligible has been vaccinated in Pima County
Now a reality game. This report was issued by the UA the same day last week that Ducey opened everything up:
That notice came out a week after UA president Robbins announced they were opening up in-person classes to larger groups of students. The on-going Robbins/Ducey tag team on public health continues to astound. Remember, this is the same UA president who last fall, in the midst of the surge in infections that came with them inviting 30,000 students back into the surrounding community said mandating testing of those students if they lived off campus was ‘unconstitutional,’ and that even asking for it through a Resolution at the Mayor and Council was ‘pandering’ to the people who live around campus. Kindly put – that's not true.
Now they’re increasing class sizes, and opening up businesses, despite variant strain infections existing on and around the UA area, and despite the fact that fewer than 20% of residents have been fully vaccinated.
cog·ni·tive dis·so·nance
noun
PSYCHOLOGY
the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.
Here’s what Ducey opened up in his EO:
Businesses may choose to drop all mask mandates, but even in his own EO Ducey recommends they continue to follow CDC guidelines. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from the UA that they ‘really hope’ students will not act like college students when they visit local bars. That was the weekly refrain in the Robbins/Carmona briefings throughout last fall. It got so repetitive and inconsequential that I had to stop watching.
The vaccination process is continuing, but we are nowhere near to the levels of immunity that would make reopening a reasonable decision. Please continue to be safe and act responsibly. Now that COVID-19 has been joined by the U.K. strain in Tucson, we must not let down our guard and lose the progress we’ve made.
Similar to my request that the UA implement mandatory testing for students living off campus, they might want to consider joining other schools such as Rutgers and implement mandatory vaccinations before students are invited back into the community this fall. Colleges and universities can play a key role in the vaccination effort. Of course, there need to be carve-outs for medical and religious reasons, but those numbers will be small. Jonathan Holloway is the Rutgers president. His comment was, “From the onset of the pandemic, the safety of the broader Rutgers community has been our shared responsibility. This has never been truer. The importance of an effective vaccination program to make our community safer for all cannot be overstated.” Time will tell if the UA follows their approach to off campus testing, or if Robbins this time agrees with the notion of a shared responsibility for the health of the broader community. I found this quote in a NY Times article appropriate to the point. It’s from Dr. Pardis Sabeti – she's a computational biologist at Harvard: “An outbreak is an opportunity to buy a lot of community good will, or to burn a lot of community good will. We could have spent an entire year building up that relationship between organizations and institutions and their communities. And we would have done all that hard work together, as opposed to everybody turning inward.”
Last week I shared with you that Ducey had rejected an additional 300,000 vaccinations for Pima County that had been offered by the feds. He had no solid grounds for refusing the allocation. It did not come at the expense of what the state is already being sent, it would not have required the state staff and operate any of the new points of distribution (POD) and the county had already identified 2 locations for the POD, both in areas of the region where some of the harder to reach populations live.
Over the weekend, Ducey said he and his health department would think about the allocation again, and late Friday his top doc Cara Christ said they’d go ahead and approve the federal allocation to Pima County – with two caveats. One is that any doses coming to that new POD will not diminish the total coming to the state overall. It would certainly have been nice for the Ducey/Robbins team to have had that same concern when they opened the UA mall POD, reducing the number of doses available to Pima County. But Christ has been assured the federal POD the county will operate will not decrease the doses Ducey has available. In addition, she expressed doubt/concern that the county would be able to afford to manage the site. They already are managing these sites, using county staff to keep them operating. It’s the state that’s sitting on the federal reimbursement dollars.
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In the meantime, the UA/state POD is now open to anyone over the age of 16. The county cannot match that due to the continuing unwillingness by the state to release more doses of the vaccine to county PODs. If, however you have a chronic medical condition, you may register for a vaccination at a county POD down to the age of 16 years. Last Wednesday, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to urge Ducey to open the new federal vaccination center in Pima County. This is from their Resolution – the second point makes it clear that if the state refuses, the county was going to lobby up to the White House.
Good for the Supervisors for adopting the Resolution. And it’s good that Ducey blinked and we’ll be getting the added 300,000 doses for this region to administer.
Use this link to register for an appointment through the county: www.pima.gov/covid19vaccine. And if you want to try the UA state site, register at https://podvaccine.azdhs.gov.
Each week through the Bloomberg COVID19 Tracker I follow how the state is doing with vaccinations. This map on the right shows the entire state of Arizona, county by county. I have Pima County highlighted in orange. The color codes reflect the % of population 18 years and older who are fully vaccinated. You can see we’re in the 20-29% range in Pima County.
The chart below shows the vaccination progress we’re making nationwide. Interesting to note is that we’re still under 50% of the population aged 65 and over have been fully vaccinated. And for the population at-large, we’re at 15% fully vaccinated. We’ve got a long way to go – opening up as if that was not the case seems counter to good public health advice.
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If you need a hand with the Pima County registration process, please call either 324.6400 or 222.0119. Things change every day with this program, so don’t hesitate to call them if you’re unsure at any point in the process.
Variant Strains
I mentioned above that the U.K. strain is now in Tucson. In fact, there have now been 62 cases of that strain reported in Arizona. The spread of the variant virus strains in the U.S. has grown from just over 400 when I first started including this item in the newsletter 5 weeks ago to now nearly 8,500. Here’s last week’s map:
Compare that to what the CDC had online last weekend:
Last week I mentioned that Florida was just about to break the “900 case” upper limit on that dark blue color code and the CDC would have to adjust. This week they’ve changed that category to “751+.” Florida moved from 882 up to 1,042 in the past week. Michigan is bumping 1,000.
The vaccines still appear to work on these variants, so please do what you can to get registered for one. This was a warning note included in some of the county correspondence I saw last week. It affirms the importance of getting the vaccination. And by extension, it affirms the importance of the governor getting out of the way of the federal POD.
These data change all the time. I’ll keep reporting on it, but if you’d like to do your own research, this link will take you directly to the CDC page related to variants: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/transmission/variant-cases.html.
International Vaccine Rates / International Infection Rates
For the past few weeks, I’ve been sharing maps showing where the COVID vaccinations are being administered around the world. The map shows some stark inequities. And intuitively, that could lead to prolonging the international COVID pandemic. Here’s the international vaccination distribution map as of last weekend. It shows vaccine doses per 100 people.
But there are now concerns with the resurgence that’s showing up even with the vaccinations. COVID is making a comeback. This chart shows international hot spots. If you compare it to the vaccination map you can see that we’re still vulnerable to the virus returning, even where vaccinations are widely available.
And to drive home the point, this new chart shows an uptick in international infections.
None of that is consistent with Ducey reopening everything. Please consider the data, and stay safe.
Another Kind of Pandemic
In January 2012, I conducted a gun buy-back. It was funded by hundreds of individual members of the community, each donating money I used to buy Safeway gift cards. I invited people to come and turn in guns they had that were just laying around and that they wanted taken out of circulation. In 3 hours’ time, we gave out over $11,000 in $50 gift cards, and took hundreds of guns off the street.
In the aftermath of that event, the Arizona state legislature passed a law saying that if we did any more gun buy-backs, all guns collected would have to be sold back into circulation. According to the then Attorney General, more guns in circulation make us a safer society. And by me destroying guns, that affected supply and demand, driving up the price so they were less accessible to the public. We lost our case at the Arizona supreme court.
Since things began reopening, we’ve seen the mass shooting in Atlanta, and another in Colorado. You may not have read about these; March 14th, 2 killed and 13 injured in a Chicago shooting, March 13th, 4 killed and 1 injured in an Indianapolis shooting, March 13th, 2 killed and 4 injured in a Richmond shooting, March 16th, 4 killed and 1 injured in a Phoenix shooting, and March 23rd, 2 killed and 2 injured in an Aliceville, Alabama shooting. Check out Gun Violence Archive and you’ll see dozens of gun-related incidents in which people are losing their lives every day in this country.
The U.S. is far and away the worst nation in the world when it comes to shooting each other. This chart shows a comparison in the number of guns in circulation vs gun deaths. The Arizona Attorney General is simply wrong when he says more guns = a safer society.
I used to open the newsletter with a picture of the flag at half staff, commemorating the loss of lives due to gun violence that aren’t of such a magnitude that they generate a call by a president or governor to drop the flags. They happen every day.
And thanks to an observant Instacart worker, Atlanta dodged another bullet last week. The guy spotted a man inside a bathroom stall who had at least 5 guns, getting ready to copy the Colorado killer who had just the day before killed 10 in a grocery store. Police converged on the Atlanta store and stopped another massacre.
Also from the gun violence archive – 2020 was a record year for gun injuries and deaths.
We right now have bills making their way through the Arizona legislature that will put more guns on our school campuses. And while Congress is considering an expanded background check bill, Arizona legislators remain locked in on the notion that we don’t have to abide by federal laws pertaining to guns.
After the buy-back, I led our effort to pass local laws mandating people report lost or stolen guns, giving the police the right to request a blood alcohol test if they suspect someone ‘operating’ a gun was drinking, requiring background checks for all gun sales taking place on city property, and prohibiting the sale of magazines that hold 10 or more bullets on city property. And Genna’s trial will soon begin – after having been rejected by our legal system for going on 8 years now.
It is legal in Arizona to buy a gun for cash, in a grocery store parking lot, with no background check into the buyer’s criminal or psychological history. Please write our Congressional delegation and let’s at least get background check legislation on the books.
Recycling Reminder
We continue to see an inordinate amount of contamination in our recycle bins. Recently that is bumping 30%, which has resulted in roughly $30K in fines per month paid by the city. In 2020, we paid $366K to our recycle contractor specifically for contamination. Based on what we’re seeing in the bins, some of that is simply people who don’t care about the rules. Dead animals and dirty diapers are not recyclables in anybody’s world. City staff is conducting random checks on recycle bins, adding educational hangers where they find contaminated materials in the bins. After the third time we find contamination in the bin, the bin can be removed.
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In general terms, plastic, paper, metal and cardboard are all recyclable. You can find a full breakdown on each of those commodities at www.tucsonaz.gov/es/recycle. Plastic does not include plastic bags. Metal does not include containers with leftover food waste inside. This is the overarching direction from our Environmental Services folks:
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Please continue bringing your glass to the Ward office – the bin is located out behind the building. And please visit the link I’ve shared above if you have any question about what you’re about to toss into the blue bin.
5G Update
I met with Verizon again last week. By way of quick update, they’re still in negotiations with TEP for a master license agreement that would allow them to use existing utility poles. One of the major bottlenecks to that agreement is TEP putting specifications into the use of individual poles that so far appear to severely limit the number of poles that could be used. I’ll be meeting jointly with the telecom folks and TEP in a couple of weeks, and that will be a very important piece of the conversation.
In my conversation with Verizon, they agreed in principle to the idea of hiding some of their poles inside fake cactus or some other piece of landscaping. Height and zoning questions came up. We’re looking into both of those, but the idea might gain some traction. It won’t be the answer to every pole site request, but at this point, until state law changes, we’re looking for how to expand options we can put on the table.
Those two items both point to the underlying problem in all of this; the desire by the telecom providers to move quickly, and the ability they have to do that under existing state law and FCC rules. If TEP limits the number of poles they can use, and if we don’t allow for some uses on private property in lieu of the Right of Way immediately in front of that property, then nothing will change from what we’re right now seeing. As I’ve asked in the past – let your state legislator know that they’re ruining our city aesthetically if they don’t amend current state law and return our voices.
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The city is moving forward with the ordinance I requested that will force the telecom provider to at least demonstrate they’ve considered all alternatives before landing on a particular site. That will force them to at least tell us why certain utility poles, light poles or traffic control elements can’t be used. And we’re moving ahead with some local requirements that will include some restrictions on how close vertical elements can be to one another. That too should cause consideration of options other than just digging a new hole and dropping in a new cell pole. Otherwise, we’ll just continue seeing this mess in our neighborhoods.
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Also, last week AT&T finally indicated an interest in getting together. I replied with a suggested meeting time and day, and they never responded. I’ll keep trying. It’s to Verizon’s credit that they’re at least willing to meet and talk about solutions. The same cannot be said of any of the other providers.
Pathways to Asia
The first committee meeting related to the previously approved Pathways to Asia zoo project was held on Saturday. During their 2 hour meeting they discussed the process they’ll follow, and were given some background on the options that have been considered for the Pathways project. With respect to process, they’ll operate on a consensus basis. That means after 45 days the group will discuss the various options and ultimately report back to M&C on any they reach consensus on. If there are none that everyone in the group at least doesn’t choose to block, they’ll report that to us.
As for the options considered, there were 4. One is the current plan – Pathways to Asia continues as planned, consistent with the money raised, and capital budgets that have been approved over the past 3 years. In addition, the new natural resources area I’ve shared in previous newsletters would be opened up for public input and comment. The areas involved are shown in the Option A map below. We have identified $1.5M for the creation of the new natural resources area, so it’s not just an idea that was lightly arrived at. It was based on the input we received from the Save Barnum group.
Note on these graphics that city staff has begun to refer to the retention ponds as ‘lakes.’ I grew up in Michigan. I swam in lakes. These are retention ponds, not lakes. The south pond is included in the planned Pathways to Asia project. Please do not swim in that pond. It has no filtration system and is likely not safe for you to risk ingesting the water if you’re out for a swim.
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Option B is to use the space we’ve programmed for the natural resource area and do the Pathways expansion there. Doing that would mean the over $2M spent on the current plan would simply be lost. And new design costs would begin. From a construction standpoint, there would have to be rework of the existing zoo features if it was to be connected to a new space as shown in the picture. We do not know the budgetary impacts of that work, but it’s predictable the zoological society would not be able to go back to donors who supported what we already approved and make a new ask for this new approach. Donor relations are not to be ignored in whatever outcome is arrived at.
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Option C involves moving to the southwest, removing the existing horseshoe pits and the existing cancer survivor memorial. It’s a much smaller footprint than the approved Pathways project, so doing this would mean rethinking what that program includes. It also includes figuring out how to incorporate the Arroyo Chico wash into any new design. The park is a part of a huge natural flood plain. Damming up a wash isn’t good hydrology planning. Spanning it and building habitat around it will be expensive. As with Option B, returning to donors and asking them to fund this would be problematic. And also as with Option B, this design would mean rework of what’s already existing inside the zoo. What’s on the north side of the fence is not just empty ground begging to be developed.
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Option D is moving into the Del Urich golf course to the east. Spanning Randolph Way with foot bridges or some other ADA compliant means of getting across would be extremely costly. Also, the golf course is a regional flood control basin. It would take millions of dollars and significant engineering to rework the flood control elements that were built to protect downstream neighborhoods. And if we start talking about taking the golf course, that group of stakeholders would need to be invited to the conversation.
And of course, there’s the option of confining the zoo to its present footprint and leaving it as-is. We’ve been looking at the expansion plans for years. We’ve been voting on, and approving capital budgets in support of the expansion for years. All of that was based on significant community outreach. Undoing all of that in 45 days will be a tough lift to sell.
Some of the committee members asked about demolishing existing parks admin buildings, facilities management storage and admin buildings, moving the Edith Ball Adaptive Center to someplace else, and even moving the entire zoo someplace else. Nobody making those proposals – including the Council Member who seems to have provoked the notion of taking out the park’s buildings – have considered the costs, redesign effort or logistics of redoing all of the existing plans. We’ll see if any of these ideas gain any traction in the next few weeks.
Over the weekend, the Tucson/Pima Historical Commission asked us to stop the project and look into designating the park as an historic asset. The south retention basin is man-made. Gene Reid dug it in ‘59 to provide some water for the golf course. The hill was added a year later from fill associated with a road paving project. And the Commission wants the rocks around the pond included in the historic assessment since they came from the Miracle Mile improvement project. I totally understand the sensitivity to the large trees. The design of the Pathways project has certainly considered preservation of as many as possible. And I’m sure we can move some of the Miracle Mile rocks over to the new natural resources site. But the retention pond and hill do not in my opinion constitute historic assets we should carve out for our portfolio.
If you would like to offer your thoughts on the Pathways expansion, please use these links and your input will be passed along to the committee.
Comments portal English – www.tucsonaz.gov/Park&ZooComments_en
Comments portal Spanish – www.tucsonaz.gov/Park&ZooComments_es
Sunshine Mile Preservation
One preservation project that is moving along well is the Sunshine Mile District. The Bungalow Block is the area between Santa Rita and Cherry, on the north side of Broadway. It’s where Rio Nuevo invested in the preservation of several bungalow buildings, with the hope of finding ways to adaptively reuse them once the construction was done. This is a rendering of the area I’ve shared before – it comes from the early Project for Public Spaces concept drawings. And it’s what’s possible through this reuse.
Rio is right now accepting applications for development of the Bungalow Block. The Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is due at 4pm on April 30th. Use this link to see the full description of the Sunshine Mile vision Sunshine Mile. And you can use this link to see the details on the Bungalow RFQ: Sunshine Mile RFQ
BYOB
No, that’s not a party Ducey is promoting where you’re invited to bring your own booze. And this isn’t a picture of Gene Reid getting ready to dig the south retention pond.
Watershed Management Group is hosting a Build Your Own Basin workshop this week. Everybody is invited to get involved. The event is free – virtual – and will also include tips on tree planting.
WMG director Lisa Shipek will lead the workshop. The intent is to plant the seed with residents of both the importance of, and how to build a basin that supports native shade trees. By taking part you’ll qualify for your own BYOB kit, and a native shade tree, wildflower seeds, organic mulch and native shrubs if they’re available.
The workshop runs from 5:30 until 7pm on Wednesday, March 31st. You can register here. The WMG monsoon team nurtures the basins outside the Ward 6 office. Stop by and take a look, and then take part in their workshop.
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Asylum Seekers
We held another meeting with our Humanitarian Aid group last week. Included were some congressional offices, Homeland Security, Border Patrol, county leadership, Catholic Community Services, people from Ajo and Gila Bend who are trying to manage the issue, and representatives from non-profits locally who are involved. My office and our City Manager were there representing city interests.
The number of migrants being apprehended by Border Patrol continues to increase. Back in ‘19 when we managed this at the Benedictine, CBP would bring the families directly to the site. Now they’ve adopted an internal policy that has them dropping people at the site closest to where they’re apprehended. That means Ajo, Gila Bend and Yuma. None of those small towns have the facilities to address the needs of the people they receive. Border Patrol knows that. When I asked the reason for the policy change, they said it was due to the criticism they received back in ‘19 over ‘leaving the border unsecured.’ So, they’re doing a ‘catch-release-and hurry back to the border’ approach. And the families are the collateral damage.
The county and city are working together on securing a transportation contract with a private firm. I’ve raised the notion of using some of our existing transit assets. That’s under review. Right now the county has asked for at least 24 hour notice before being called to provide transport. They’re getting 4-5 hours, which makes securing vehicles and drivers tough. And making it even more difficult is when people are dropped off in say Ajo after 9pm.
Another factor making this difficult to manage is Border Patrol often gives inaccurate numbers for how many will be dropped off. Due to COVID, we cannot completely fill buses. When we’re told to expect 21 people, but 31 are dropped off, having the wrong number of vehicles on site for the transport is an unnecessary confounding piece of all this.
I also raised the issue of both CBP and Homeland Security creating the ‘unaccompanied minor’ issue unnecessarily. If a minor arrives at the border with anybody other than a parent, they’re considered unaccompanied and separated from the adult. That’s a law enacted to protect kids from being trafficked. I get it – in the normal course of events, that makes sense. This is not the normal course of events. I have confirmed with DHS staff that more often than not the kids separated are returned to the same person they were separated from after being held and ‘processed.’ Someone at the federal level who is truly concerned with these separations needs to address the reality that we’re in a unique situation, and that calls for common sense at the point of separating kids from adults – not a blind adherence to a statute that has the best of intentions, but isn’t relevant to our current conditions.
We’re assured by FEMA that we will be reimbursed for hotel costs associated with housing COVID-positive migrants. Right now they’re interpreting the assistance money to be for COVID-related costs only. When I pointed out that we have no church or non-profit partners, capacity at Alitas is constrained by the need to socially distance, and both of those factors are completely a function of COVID – and then asked for assurance based on that reality that we will be reimbursed for hotel costs related to people who are not COVID-positive, the guy from FEMA would not give that assurance.
Aides from Kirkpatrick, Grijalva and Sinema’s offices were on the call. They each said they’d get to work on the transportation issue. I’m hopeful the reimbursement for legitimate costs is also going to percolate to the top of their to-do list. The city and county are facing the funding obligation without that support.
Donations are increasingly important. Thanks to all of you who continue to step towards these needs and bring your donations. Costco or Walgreen’s gift cards are good in lieu of food or cash. Toiletries, hygiene products, kids’ toys – whatever you pack before a 3 day road trip with your kids is what we need. Susan from Sam Hughes has been a gem in helping with this. Contact me at steve.kozachik@tucsonaz.gov to coordinate meeting here at the office.
The folks out at Alitas continue looking for volunteers. And if you’re reluctant to go out to the center to help, there are several ways you can help the cause even remotely. Being a Spanish speaker is helpful, but is not required for many of the roles they’re filling. To check into that, email at volunteers@casaalitas.org. And this link will connect you for other ways you can support their work: other support by following the link below. Casa Alitas
COVID Risk in Pima County
We had some really promising daily counts last week – and then the numbers started to reverse themselves again as the weekend arrived. The changes from day to day also highlight the need to keep a single day’s number in perspective. They’re often subject to change due to lag times in reporting. Here’s the 4 week trend in daily counts for new cases in Pima County that I’ve been keeping.
We’re doing significantly better than the days of 1,000+ new cases we saw in January. I see a lot of restaurants and bars full of people. Masks are rare in those places. And of course the states such as Texas and Florida that have reopened completely will serve as test cases for new surges.
The Harvard Global Health Institute map has more changes this week. This is what I had in the newsletter last week. But none of this is static.
Here’s what the Harvard folks have this week. In Arizona, there was some slight improvement. We see more red in Michigan, and areas of the northeast. In our neck of the woods, parts of New Mexico, Utah, Texas and Colorado are showing more high-risk areas.
Most of the schools are now back to hybrid. If you want to track the risk factors guiding that decision, you can find them on the Pima County COVID site with this link: https://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=169&pageId=568644.
Here’s our statewide map. I’ve been sharing these weekly for over a year now. Thankfully, minimal change from a week ago.
In Pima County we’ve lost over 2,300 friends and loved ones since this began. When we did the memorial event in Himmel last October, the number was 622. At the time, we planted a flag for each person. Now that field of flags would cover the entire hill we gathered on.
These are the infectivity rate data from 3/19.
Here’s the most recent update. The UA area saw a slight increase, and the state did as well. I’ll keep an eye on this now that the governor has opened things up for business.
You can find the most current data at this site: https://covid19.arizona.edu/dashboard.
Please keep focused on getting a vaccine and continuing to practice safe habits. We can see the finish line, but we’re not there yet.
Pima County Health Department portal: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/426baca70718453a9f63a4f85e545d8b
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
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.
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.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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