Arizona and COVID-19: Lessons Learned After 30 Months

By Dr. Howard J. Eng

Abstract:

It had been more than 30 months since COVID-19 appeared in the world. On January 22, 2020, the first case recorded in Arizona. The state had gone through three Reopening Phases. ABC and NBC News reported that the state had the highest new cases per capital in the world during Arizona’s Reopening Phase 2 winter surge in 2020. The state has been in Reopening Phase 3 since March 5, 2021. Arizona is about the same size as Italy and the sixth largest in size of the United States 50 states. The study examined 30 months of the state’s COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of the two and half years, there were 2,125,567 COVID-19 cases, 111,903 hospitalizations, 30,515 deaths, and 12,004,865 vaccine doses administered (June 29, 2022). The case numbers of hospitalization percentages had declined in each of the three-years. During the past 18 months, the death rates declined. The lessons learned included: who had the highest risk in getting the virus, the vaccine limitations, men had a higher risk for getting a severe case than women, there were cyclic case surges, and normal was not zero cases.