U.S. reports another record day of deaths with 3,793 fatalities 

Arizona is the latest coronavirus ‘hot spot of the world’ with multiple hospitals operating at more than 120 percent of licensed bed capacity and new daily cases doubling since the state’s summer peak.

The COVID-19 pandemic across the South is continuing to see a dramatic increase in new patients with all but four Sun Belt states facing record hospitalizations in the last week.

The southern surge is heightening as the United States reported another record day for deaths on Wednesday, with 3,793 fatalities reported, according to COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations also reached a record high of 132,476 on Wednesday as the seven-day average for daily hospitalizations hit 127,352.

New daily cases were the second highest they have been since the start of the pandemic with 243,346 reported.

And Wednesday continued a record-breaking streak with the seven-day average for new daily cases climbing to 216,736. 

According to the COVID Tracking Project, 15 states recorded their highest week of COVID hospitalizations this week, all of them in the south or west.

Louisiana, D.C., Kentucky and Florida were the only southern states not to have record hospitalizations this week.

California and Arizona were the two states in the west that reached record hospitalizations this week, both of which are continuing to see strain on their healthcare system with no change in site.

Arizona experienced a previous surge in the summer when from early June until mid-July, it had the highest per capita rate of new cases in the country.

At that point, the state was recording around 3,800 new cases a day, according to the New York Times, and experienced thousands of deaths.

However, the outbreak in Arizona is now recording more than double the daily new cases seen at the previous peak, skyrocketing to 8,000 a day.

Arizona health officials on Wednesday reported a triple-digit number of new virus-related deaths for the second day in a row and more than 7,200 daily cases, with hospitals strained by a record number of patients.

Arizona has the worst coronavirus diagnosis rate in the country, with one out of every 119 people in the state testing
positive in the past week, health officials said.

Yet despite the intensifying surge, the state’s health experts are concerned that there is still no widespread public vigilance such as mask wearing and social distancing that could help combat the spread.

Dr. Marjorie Bessel, chief clinical officer of Banner Health, the state’s largest hospital chain, said the uncontrollable spread of the virus could be lessened if the government enforced mask requirements, barred indoor dining and cancelled large gatherings. 

People also need to wear masks and limit their contact to only those they live with.

‘We are not doing a good job with this virus,’ Bessel said of the state. ‘At this time during the surge of the pandemic, we need additional mitigation. We need enforcement of those mitigation activities, and we need everybody to do their own part.’

‘Most Americans don’t want to know, don’t want to acknowledge, don’t really want to recognize and certainly — even as it’s descending upon us — do not appear to understand the dire circumstances that we are facing,’ she told the Times. 

And just as concerning is that Arizona is also currently administering its vaccines at the lowest rate in the country, even as ICU beds become limited and hundreds of healthcare workers are being flown in from other states to help.

‘It shouldn’t have to have taken this amount of destruction for folks to take it seriously,’ Kristin Urquiza, who lost her father to coronavirus, said to the Times.

‘There might be some hope that people will begin to think about it differently if they see it take hold of people they love.’

In Arizona, hospitals are now forced to send emergency patients elsewhere and elective surgeries are halted as more than 4,600 coronavirus patients are currently hospitalized.

Out of the 1,800 ICU beds available across the state, there were only 136 beds available as of Wednesday.

According to Bessel, even as nurses are being quickly trained in new skills, she said that if the situation in Arizona worsens any further, it will soon reach a point where rationing care and other drastic measures will have to be considered.

Yet Gov. Doug Ducey has frequently resisted calls to take strong measures to stop any increase in infections.

He has declined to institute a statewide mask mandate, allowed school districts to mostly make their own choices and allowed businesses to stay open.

All of those choices by the Republican governor are now getting renewed scrutiny as the Grand Canyon state became what health officials call the latest ‘hot spot of the world’ because of soaring caseloads.

‘We have a governor and health director who don’t care. Their goal in my opinion is to vaccinate their way out of this,’ said Will Humble, head of the Arizona Public Health Association 

‘Eventually it will work. There´s just going to be a lot of dead people in the meantime.’

C.J. Karamargin, the governor’s spokesman, said the current number of cases and deaths are ‘heartbreaking’ but it’s a phenomenon happening in other states even with strict stay-at-home o
rders.

‘Faced with strict mitigation measures in place and states that have few or minimal mitigation measures in place all are experiencing the same thing,’ Karamargin said. 

‘The mitigation measures the state of Arizona put into place early on – they remain in place. We urge every Arizonan to follow them.’

At the same time, the state is working to ramp up vaccination distribution efforts, Karamargin added. 

More than 119,000 people in Arizona have received the vaccine, state health officials said Wednesday. 

That is less than 2 percent of the state’s population. 

Nationally, as of Wednesday, more than three weeks into the U.S. vaccination campaign, 5.3 million people had gotten their first.

Just five months, President Donald Trump hailed Arizona as a model for how it dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic.  

After a stay-at-home order early in the pandemic was gradually lifted, the Republican governor declined to reimpose restrictions like neighboring California, which also is seeing a surge in infections and overwhelmed hospitals. 

In Arizona, indoor dining is allowed, and gyms are open at limited capacity, businesses that have been more restricted in many other states.

California, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Oklahoma are also experiencing new cases at extraordinarily high rates as new infections over 200,000 and more than 2,500 deaths became daily norm in the U.S.

Nationwide, there have now been more than 21.3million Americans infected with coronavirus and 361,063 deaths.