Mental Health Care and a Tribute to Health Care Workers
I’m going to open with a short piece on the state of mental health care in Arizona. And most specifically how that affects our health care workers. Mental Health America issued the results of their 2022 survey. It comes on the heels of a midtown neighborhood rejecting a mental health counseling center citing ‘strangers’ being invited into the neighborhood. Well, it seems that’s a pretty common and unfortunate phenomenon in this state. This graph shows a ranking of rates of mental illness combined with access to care. You’ll find Arizona ranked #49 – kind of like how we fund public education.
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In Arizona, the percentage of adults with Adult Mental Illness who did not receive treatment increased from 52.7% in 2017-2018 to 57.0% in 2018-2019 (the data point for the survey.) I pulled this graphic from the study. It shows exactly what we were trying to address with the mental health counseling center – we will find a welcoming home for it.
The picture for health care workers is even more grim. Prior to the pandemic burnout affected between a third and a half of doctors and nurses. The MHA folks surveyed in September of 2020 – the beginning of the first COVID surge – and found 93% of health care workers reported stress, 86% reported anxiety, 76% reported exhaustion and 41% reported being lonely. That was nearly at the beginning of COVID. Nobody has any reason to believe that the longer the pandemic lasted our health care front line workers just got used to the long hours, watching patients on ventilators, and telling family members they’d lost their battle with the virus.
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So, I open this week with a tribute to our health care workers, and a reminder that mental health is a treatable illness. We’ll find a good home for our city worker counseling facility. And we at the Ward 6 office will continue to celebrate the hard and heroic work being performed in health care settings since COVID became an international thing.
If you’d like to browse through the full MHA report, use this link: https://www.mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america
Gun Control
There is a direct tie between gun violence and the need for access to mental health treatment. The gun control legislation I wrote about last week continues to be massaged in the senate. It’ll then have to go through the reconciliation process before ending up on the president’s desk. In short, there’s a long way to go before anything is enacted, and the longer it takes count on the eventual law being watered down.
We’re not without the ability to effect change with regard to gun safety. Congress will do what they do, but if you’re a gun owner, you can already do your part. First – buy a gun safe and keep your guns stored away in a secure manner. Store weapons separately from ammunition. This map shows where children have been killed due to gun violence so far in 2022. And there have been over 11,000 suicides with guns so far in ‘22. Many of these are preventable through safe storage.
Generally, make it difficult for a person who may have thoughts of self-harm to access a weapon. And make it difficult for kids who are just horsing around from finding a loaded weapon laying in a drawer.
Another way to play a positive role in gun safety is do not store them in your car.
From 2018 to date over 1,100 guns have been stolen out of cars in Tucson. That’s 1,100 hot weapons floating around the city that could have been avoided if the owners hadn’t left them in a vehicle. In 2021 we peaked at 334 guns having been stolen from parked vehicles. So far in ‘22 we’re at 84.
The city has an ordinance in place that says you must let TPD know that you’ve either lost your gun, or someone has stolen it. It’s a commonsense way of alerting the police that there’s a hot gun floating around the community. But even better is to simply not leave a weapon in a locked car. While we wait on D.C. to figure this out, proper storage is a way every gun owner can already be a part of making the community safer.
PFAS
This is a photo of the Van Etten Creek dam in Oscoda, Michigan. Oscoda is right on Lake Huron – one of the Great Lakes. My family spent summers there for several years when I was growing up in Michigan. I still remember a couple of years when there were no fishing boats being booked because the shores were full of dead fish. The photo shown below is right next to the now-closed Wurtsmith Air Force Base. DOD records have for years shown high levels of PFAS in the waterways surrounding the base. Having spent time in those waters as a kid is just one reason, I’ve been passionate about getting our arms around Tucson’s PFAS issue.
In 2016, the Obama EPA placed a ‘health advisory’ limit on PFAS of 70 parts per trillion (ppt.) A health advisory is not enforceable, but it’s the ‘best guess’ by the EPA experts on what levels of a given chemical should be of concern to consumers. There are no mandatory contamination levels (MCL) in place for PFAS.
I’ve shared multiple times over the past few years the progression of the PFAS contamination in Tucson. DM officials have admitted they used to hose it into the soil or dump it into the sewer system, so it comes as no surprise that extremely high levels exist out by DM, in the county sewer treatment plant and outside the Air National Guard training sites by Tucson International Airport. With EPA limits of 70ppt, we’ve found concentrations of over 1,000ppt by DM and over 10,000ppt by TIA.
PFAS are called ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t degrade or dilute to safe levels over time. As far back as the ‘70’s studies showed their toxicity. But the EPA has never set legally enforceable exposure limits. The result is the DOD has been hiding behind the 70ppt ‘advisory’ limit and has refused to pay for cleaning up our groundwater contamination. They have provided bottled water to people in the Tucson area who are on private wells that have had PFAS in excess of the 70ppt level.
Last week, the EPA changed their exposure standards. They still didn’t set an MCL, but they reduced the health advisory level way down to .0004ppt for one of the PFAS chemicals, and .02ppt for another one. The EPA testing method that Tucson Water is certified to use will only detect PFAS down to 2ppt. So, the EPA set an advisory level far below their own ability to test for it. It’s government at its finest – set a standard that’s ‘advisory,’ and set it so low that nobody can detect at the new levels.
The city already shuts down wells when we see contamination levels for 4 of the PFAS compounds at 18ppt. There are lower concentrations for the individual chemicals. But nobody has an EPA-approved testing method to reach their own new standards. So, we can either ignore the new advisory levels, or reset our own internal policies so any level of detection will cause us to shut down the offending well. That’s the responsible direction. We’re told the EPA ‘is preparing to propose mandatory standards’ sometime this fall. The fact that they jumped the gun and lowered the advisory level now instead of just waiting until they were ready for the mandatory levels is inexplicable.
So, we’re in a box. So is the DOD. They’ve been relying on 70ppt for the standard before which they act. If they’re going to be consistent, they will now have to act at any time PFAS is detected. That’s a game-changer for them – and potentially for us if funding to remediate the contamination they caused is a part of the deal. But realize the DOD is likely in this same fix in every city in the country that has had a military base. They all used the fire-fighting foam that has caused the pollution. This is a multi-billion-dollar obligation for the feds in every state of the country. Last Wednesday the EPA said it’s offering $1B grants to states through the bipartisan infrastructure law to address drinking water pollution related to PFAS. Tucson Water has spent or committed well over $50M to begin addressing our own local problem. We haven’t seen any federal money yet.
Here’s a link to a Washington Post story that ran last week describing the extent of this issue. I’ve been on it since the day I invited attorneys to come to Tucson, the result of which was the city joining litigation against 3M and other product manufacturers. The EPA just changed the rules of the game, and it will affect everybody’s response.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wapo.st/3mLVxSx__;!!FKiftyP3kjSRWA!sKLe07RdoqrKt2CZlJpt05LYNULrKjdkLajbktpmC2T_gZDxBYFP7kLPLSKJ1DKrpBvHzrNp8WON60MBV_RpN84_gg5-uSEmtmlI$
One final note on this, The Bureau of Reclamation has been overseeing the drop in water levels on the Colorado River. They’re working with basin states, including Arizona to come up with ways we can keep the River at healthy levels. That’s germane to the PFAS issue because the Colorado is keeping us from having to dip into our groundwater reserves. Last week the Bureau issued new standards the basin states will have to reach in order to avoid that from happening. They also made it clear that the days of us taking our full allotment from the River and banking about a third of what we get are likely over. I’ve been saying for the past 3+ years that we will need our groundwater sooner than anyone is right now planning. In the past week that was made more clear than it has been in the past. That means PFAS is an immediate issue, and not one the DOD has the luxury of studying for several more years.
Reminder for the upcoming PFAS forum I’ll be hosting. Joining will be representatives from DOD, ADEQ, Tucson Water and our city attorney’s office. The meeting will take place on Thursday, July 14th at 6pm – by Zoom. Here’s the link.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84137080185?pwd=K05UK3VJT1kzV1Fmb0FyS0owVzQzQT09
Meeting ID: 841 3708 0185
Passcode: 11111
Climate Tucson Forum
On a related note, on Thursday, June 23rd at 5:30 p.m. Climate Tucson will host a zoom meeting that’ll touch on a couple of issues near and dear to us in the Ward 6 office: climate and critters.
Many of you have met Mark Hart from the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD.) We’ve had him lead events on urban wildlife, and he has been to several neighborhood meetings I’ve taken part in to talk about how to peacefully coexist with the critters we see wandering through midtown. The Climate Tucson folks have invited him to share what AGFD is doing to help wildlife make it through the heat of the summer during the drought.
Game and Fish have crews who travel all over the state depositing water to over 3,000 catchment sites. It’s called their Send Water program. The sites are in remote regions which makes the water drops challenging. Some is taken by tanker truck, and other sites require helicopter drops. Mark will be on hand to describe the magnitude of effort his department is investing in the health and preservation of desert wildlife. The goal – avoid massive die-offs and stabilize populations of animals. And the collateral benefit is discouraging the animals from searching out residential areas for their food and water source. Think of the brown bear that was seen around Glenn and Craycroft a few weeks ago.
Use the link below to sign into the event. And if you’d like to support the effort, you can find out more at this link: Send Water
LINK TO JUNE 23 MEETING
Operation Splash
Each night on the news we see reports of extreme weather events happening around the country. Our own monsoons area starting – and they can be extreme. Last week, we started this year’s Operation Splash recognizing the first day of monsoon season.
The city washes flood. If you’re relatively new to the area, please be aware - do not enter a dip when its running. Every year someone is carried away trying to sneak through a dip during monsoons. As a part of Operation Splash, you’ll see barricades up near those crossings. There are more than 500 barricades deployed citywide and transportation staff is ready to put them into place as soon as the rain events call for it. Please obey them.
In addition, the city is again offering free sandbags. Both sandbags and the sand will again be located in the east parking lot at Hi Corbett Field in Reid Park. Bring your own shovel and please self-limit to 10 sandbags per vehicle.
Sam Hughes on Climate
One final climate-related issue. The Sam Hughes neighborhood is looking to connect with other W6 neighborhoods. Their first outreach is to share thoughts on heat resiliency during the summer. A few of the ideas they’re including in their own newsletter are to sign up for weather alerts, create your own household checklist for extreme heat emergency supplies, and from a more community-wide perspective you can volunteer to distribute supplies to neighbors.
The Sam Hughes folks would like to collaborate with other W6 neighbors on this and other topics of mutual concern. And knowing this group I’m certain they would not hang up on neighbors from other wards in the city. To begin that relationship you can email Gladys at gladys.richardson@gmail.com, Stuart at stuartfieldmoody@hotmail.com, or Wendi at wendigardner@msn.com.
TEP Transmission Line Project
Last week, the Planning Commission voted to advance a proposal to the M&C that could give some new direction to the TEP transmission line project. And to requests to overground new transmission lines generally. The vote was 7-1 to send us the proposal. Based on the comments made by Commissioners, it could well have been 4-3.
The immediate project this will affect is the one in which TEP is asking to overground new transmission lines from the southwest side through midtown by Banner UMC and over to the northwest side. Some of the areas involved are designated Gateway Corridors. New utilities on gateways are supposed to be undergrounded.
Right now, TEP can go to the Board of Adjustment to request a variance from that code requirement. They just did and were approved overgrounding on Silverbell Road. What we’re considering is changing that variance process to one that has more public engagement – a Special Exception request.
The Special Exception process begins with neighborhood meetings. Then it advances onto the zoning examiner. The ZE makes a recommendation to M&C. We vote on that recommendation and can amend it if we choose to. City staff presented Planning Commission with a set of criteria the zoning examiner would consider in making his recommendation. This was the first list the PC considered:
What I highlighted are the criteria the PC asked staff to reconsider and/or tweak. Staff took another look at the list and made some changes based on that feedback. Both criterion D and I were eliminated from the list. Criteria C, F, H and K were each rewritten in response to PC input. And at the Commission’s request 3 proposals from the Tucson Underground Coalition were added to the list. Here’s a red line showing each of the changes. You’ll note that when an item is eliminated, it changes the letter designation for those below it – so after D is eliminated, the former E becomes the new D, and so on.
The end of the list includes the 3 items proposed by the Underground Coalition before ending with what was originally item K.
Procedurally now the next step is for staff to pull together the results of the Planning Commission recommendation and bring it to M&C for a final discussion and vote. That could come as soon as our next meeting on July 12th. If the Special Exception process is adopted, it will be a significant change to the process TEP had been heading down 3 years ago when their public outreach was less asking for variances from our codes than it was advising the public that the utility was going to choose a ‘preferred route’ and present that to the Corporation Commission for approval.
Homeless - Housing First
We had another real-time example of the futility of the city being wedded to a Housing First/Housing Only model for addressing homelessness. This happens regularly, but not generally with quite the immediacy that we saw on Friday.
Here’s a picture of some of what was being cleaned out of Arcadia Wash. We’ve been into that wash a half dozen times in the past few months cleaning out everything from bedding to clothes, drug paraphernalia, other biohazards and just stuff that was used by unhoused people to live. If we don’t have rooms for the people we move, we just tell them to leave. Note here: if we had some controlled camps around the city, we would have options for the people.
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We don’t have controlled camps around the city because of a policy decision being driven by the mayor and city council that says we’re offering people shelter, and nothing else. So, on Friday, while city crews were in cleaning Arcadia, the same people we had moved out were taking up shelter in the park immediately across the street. One council member feels his ward is ‘taking the brunt’ of the homeless situation. The reality is every ward in the city is experiencing this, and our housing policy is wholly inadequate to address it. And to be clear, controlled camps will not ‘solve’ it either – they'd be one tool of many we need to assist the unhoused. There is no single solution.
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Also to be clear, I’m not suggesting we leave people in the washes. Especially during monsoons. Clogging up the washes with mattresses and other items will cause flooding. And people caught in the tunnels can drown. And being in washes that are also in our flood plains is in direct violation of city code – for lots of very good reasons. For example -
I’ve spoken with some of our housing people, our homeless outreach team, and community members. All agree that what we’re doing is a waste of resources and is degrading to the people involved. I’m on record. Until others come alongside, we’ll just keep chasing people from one space to another.
Hotline for Unsheltered Resources
Beginning on June 1st the city went live with a 24/7 resource hotline to provide information on shelters and services that are available for homeless. The number is 520.791.2540. It’s being staffed by transportation/mobility workers.
Included in the mix of services is information on medical assistance, mental health help, meals, and other sorts of outreach available to those who are unhoused in the community. Please keep the number handy and if you have questions about services feel free to give them a call anytime, any day.
Refugees
When was the last time you saw an article in the paper about Afghanistan and the killing that continues in the aftermath of our departure? It’s a rhetorical question – it's off the news. But I get contacts pretty much daily and in an effort to keep the topic alive, I share some of it with you. I did a segment with AZPM on this exact issue last week. It won’t air until fall. Thousands of people will suffer between now and then.
The most recent email I received was last week from a person who is stuck in Kabul. This person worked for a USAID-sponsored project in Afghanistan. You’ll see several acronyms in his email. As usual I’ll omit some names but will keep the email grammatically exactly as it was sent to me. The takeaway from this is it’s another family who had worked on behalf of our effort in Afghanistan, trusted us, and is now under daily threat by Taliban.
I want to inform you that taliban's intelligence has started searching of torgeted people for killjng and punishing. They captured one of my uncle named Mohammed Shah and my cousin named Lalak in Kandahar last mount and still missing.
I want to inform you that after MSS/USAID I worked in Afghan government in mony high civil & millitary posts where I was very active against taliban and I was very famous on media .
So the danger is increasing more for me.
As the USA government has started SIV aplicants ( who has COM Approvel ) evacuvation from kabul Airport through Qater Airways these days in May again . I know that the NVCSIV staff is very busy this time on the other side taliban become more cruel and wild day by day and increase the threat more for me.
So I hope you if you could contact some body in NVCSIV related offices to give priority for sending my immigration case approvel and my evacuation it will save our lives from danger.
" If my all family imigration process take much time I hope you to cantact some one in the immigration department to complete soon my process alone and send me US visa .
when I arrived to USA then I will continue my family imigration case process "
Thank you for you helps.
I shared the contact information and case numbers with several people in State and with DHS. Nobody has replied.
Similarly, nobody from the State Department has replied to my appeal on behalf of the helicopter operator who flew missions on our behalf. His brother has been captured and killed by Taliban. His 2 sons, daughter and wife are all moving from house to house daily to avoid being caught. They cannot work and so have no money for food, medicine, or housing. They’re targets because of the work the guy who’s now in Tucson did for our effort. He tells me he wants to go back and sacrifice himself in order to take the pressure off from his family. And our resettlement process is so broken that we can’t even get someone to make contact with the guy and let him know we are aware of the danger.
The judge’s wife now has a medical exam scheduled for early July. Nobody from State could find a doctor in Istanbul, so we’ll be hiring a private car (taxi) to go the 600 miles to Ankara to get the exam. We’re trusting the embassy people when they say not to worry about her showing up without a passport or other documents that were included in the instructions they sent. They send instructions – I point out to them that she can’t comply (and they’re aware of that before sending the instructions) - and they reply to not worry about it. “Trust the process.” Stay tuned.
Then there’s Ukraine. Uniting for Ukraine is the Biden-created program intended to welcome victims of Putin’s invasion. The program requires a sponsor who’ll help guide the incoming families through our processes and vouch for financial support. In Tucson we have about 10 families trying to resettle. I’m involved with one of them, trying to assist the sponsor through our mess of a resettlement process. And that mess is only exacerbated when the administration tosses together a program without thinking through the logistics, they’re leaving unaddressed. The sponsors are learning of the holes in the system on the fly.
Over the weekend I sent this email to a couple of congressional aides. It included the sponsor. We’ll see if we get a response. It opened with the sponsor’s name, followed by this - “She's the sponsor for a Ukrainian family that arrived here under Uniting for Ukraine a few weeks ago. The family consists of grandma (75 yrs.), Kira (5 yrs.), mom (28 yrs.) and dad (29 yrs.) Mom is a doctor and dad worked detailing automobiles in Ukraine. Both of course want and need to work.
One issue is getting social security cards. Prior to taking the entire family in to get them, SS told (the sponsor) all they needed was the I-94 and passports. Upon arriving they were told they also need the I-766 (employment authorization card.) The Social Security cards can be stamped 'not for employment.' The cost for an I-766 is $410 per person. That means we're paying $820 for a 75-year-old and for a 5-year-old to get work authorization cards that will never be used just to allow us to apply for the SS card.”
I ended with a request for assistance from one of the congressional offices. We’ll see what happens. One of them has been totally willing to engage with the judge’s situation. The other defaults to ‘for privacy reasons we can’t involve you.’ Which by the way is total garbage.
Meanwhile, Saturday was World Refugee Day. In Tucson, it was celebrated at Amphi High School. It was nice to see so many of the people my staff and I have had the opportunity greet and get to know as they arrived in Tucson. So many of you have helped with donations – their gratitude is immense.
There were over 20 different organizations working together to sponsor the Refugee Day event. While we were there to celebrate the achievements of refugees who have become our friends, neighbors and co-workers, the day would have been a disservice to the whole issue of refugee resettlement if we had ignored the plight of those we’ve left behind. It was good to see that recognized, and a recognition of the causes of forced migration, and the persecution that continues.
Now scroll back up and re-read the email I got from Kabul last week. And take note that nobody from our State Department or any Congressional office has stepped in to assist.
Loft Cinema Kids Fest
How about a break for some fun news? Do you remember Looney Tunes? Or the Addams Family, Lion King, or Harry Potter? They’re all coming to the big screen during the Loft Kids Fest. It’ll be every Saturday and Sunday morning and will last the month of July. There are plenty of things dragging kids away from being kids – this is a chance to let them just act their age. And parents will enjoy the time away from the news of the day.
Go to the Loft website at https://loftcinema.org/films/ and you can get advance tickets and sign up as a new Loft member.
Sol y Luna
With the UA on summer class schedules the number of students living in the off-campus towers is reduced. Evidently that hasn’t given Nelson Properties – owners of Sol y Luna – time to get their act together on how their towers are secured and managed. I’ve shared stories on these properties for years, under the current and under previous management groups. Nothing has changed. It was nice to see KVOA’s Chorus Nylander was able to get some of the tenants to speak out. I get regular emails from students and parents about how the place is run. Here’s his story validating that the $1,000 per month per bed Nelson is getting is clearly going to something other than security or responsive management.
https://www.kvoa.com/news/n4t-investigators-students-concerned-about-safety-at-off-campus-housing-complex/article_c3757564-eb90-11ec-95cf-8fff9b9f36a3.html
I’m sharing this for a couple of reasons. One is related to Nelson’s comment that they act on any criminal activity brought to them by TPD. When they said that to me my response was that it’s not our job to babysit and manage your property. Get your own security and quit relying on taxpayers to do your job. The other reason for sharing is we’ve got some new out of state student housing developers putting together a proposal for the SE Speedway/Euclid corner. I’ve used the Sol y Luna experience as an example to them that we’ve heard all the promises before. If that deal advances, it’ll require some new set of assurances, codified in ways that have some teeth. That’s for the comfort of the community as well as for their own tenants.
The Value of Video
We oftentimes host meetings with residents, business owners and TPD, the subject of which is to review crime trends in particular areas of the ward. It is not uncommon for TPD to urge people to install a good video system to help as force-extenders. Last week, we had an example of where video will play a key role in arresting and holding accountable a guy who was vandalizing some downtown businesses.
I won’t play the whole video sequence, but this is the jerk getting ready to hurl a rock through the window of a business. TPD has the entire sequence and has a pretty good idea where to locate the guy. We’ve had other similar examples of where video surveillance proved to be a valuable tool for the police. I share it as something to consider as a way of ‘hardening the target.’
ByFusion Blocks
We’ve gotten some calls from other neighborhoods who are watching the San Gabriel bench move along and who have expressed interest in doing some of the plastic block construction in their own pocket parks. At W6, we love it. My message is to let us work through this first one, understand the process a little better and then we’ll be in a better position to move onto more of these.
So far, the players include our ByFusion partners, Tucson Clean & Beautiful, neighbors from San Gabriel, City of Tucson General Services, Bottle Rocket for the bench seat (crushed glass,) and last week I was able to get local contractor Kappcon into the mix. They’re in touch with ByFusion and will be involved with the stucco/plexiglass portion of the work. So yes, it’s a bit of a village.
With the foundation now poured we’re waiting on some cure time for the concrete. Blocks have been ordered and we are scheduled for the install this Thursday. I love the monsoons, but it’d be nice for them to give us a few hours to get this project done.
I haven’t seen the contractor over at El Pueblo submit for permits on the trash enclosure so it looks like the San Gabriel project will be the first opportunity to see the ByFusion blocks ‘in action.’
COVID
Some family members of W6 staffers tested positive for COVID last week, so we’ve been playing it cautiously. We’re also aware of hospital staff also testing positive with the infection. Nobody’s on ventilators, but all are taking it seriously. The data continue to show the virus is ramping up for another summer surge. Here’s the table I’ve been keeping, updated to include the past weeks numbers. In Pima County we’ve increased case counts by nearly a factor of 10 since the last week of April.
Week of
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Pima County
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Arizona
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April 24th
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260 new cases
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2,350 new cases
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May 1st
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510 new cases
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3,911 new cases
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May 8th
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776 new cases
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5,404 new cases
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May 15th
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1,090 new cases
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7,204 new cases
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May 22nd
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1,692 new cases
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11,498 new cases
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May 29th
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1,985 new cases
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13,042 new cases
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June 5th
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2,200 new cases
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14,677 new cases
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June 12th
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2,451 new cases
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16,334 new cases
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I mentioned that hospitalizations are decreasing and indeed the severity of these new cases is reduced from what we experienced during Delta. Built in immunities and better treatment are likely causes for that improvement. This graph shows how fatalities have significantly dropped off since the early days of the pandemic.
Yes, there were still 28 people in Arizona who lost their lives due to COVID in the past week, so this is not ready for the history books quite yet. And yes, you should follow CDC guidelines if you’ve been around people who tested positive – stay away from others and get yourself tested.
Here is this week’s Arizona ‘by-county’ COVID case map dating back to the start of all this in March 2020. In that time over 30,000 Arizonans have died from the disease.
Getting tested while the case counts are escalating is doing the responsible thing. If you have symptoms, or if you’ve been around people who do, call and make an appointment at one of these Pima County Health testing centers.
Of course, vaccines and boosters continue to mitigate the severity of COVID for those who become infected. Here are this week’s Pima County Health vaccine centers.
For Pima County the positivity rate continues to be north of 23%. But compared to where we were earlier in the pandemic, we’ve come a long way. This graph shows Pima County case counts by month – note that this month is still only halfway done.
You can still order your in-home COVID tests through this website: covidtests.gov. The federal government is making 8 per household available.
The Harvard Global Health Care risk level map shows the high-risk areas have largely shifted to the west and southwest.
As noted above in my chart, the Pima County numbers have continued to get worse over the past week. Last week the 7-day moving average per 100,000 people was 30, and the new daily case count was 314. Both went up again in the past week.
Flu is still under control in Arizona and is improving in all of our neighboring states. Evidently people have gotten their flu shots and we’re going to have a mild flu season.
A lot of people are just ignoring COVID now. Certainly, vaccines and boosters have allowed us that luxury. No vaccine is forever. Please keep track of your own timing and stay up to date on that protective measure. The CDC recommends a 2nd booster 6 months following your first one. And last week they approved COVID vaccines for kids as young as 6 months old. You might consider adding it to you list of childhood vaccinations.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik Council Member, Ward 6 ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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