Over 2.4 million COVID-19 cases have been tallied in Arizona with a recent increase of more than 26,000. This marks a weekly growth in cases by 1%.
In comparison, only 3,379 cases were added in last week's state update.
A blog post from the state health department reported most of the newly reported cases are due to a lab failing to report case data from 2022.
Looking into the data, it shows that 24,505 occurred in 2022, and nearly all of those tested positive last winter.
Recent data from the health department indicates cases are still flat. About 1,900 Arizonans tested positive last week.
With the reporting lag, recent weeks have seen COVID-19 cases in the 3,000 range, much lower than the 16,000 seen during this past winter’s peak in late December.
Hospitalization data from Health and Human Services also points to low COVID-19 infection rates. Both inpatient and ICU COVID-19 hospitalization cases make up about 3% of bed occupancy in their respective departments.
In December 2022 about one in five hospital patients was reported to have COVID-19. The numbers were higher in the state’s ICU wards, with one in three patients.
Arizona continues to see COVID-19 deaths, with 39 reported in this week’s dashboard update, but the deaths appear to be falling.
When looking at deaths by week, nine were reported for the first week of February, according to the latest data available.
The complete data will lag a few more weeks, but Arizona is hopefully nearing a point where weekly deaths will be in the single digits.
In total, 33,042 people were reported to have died from COVID-19 in Arizona since the start of the pandemic.
