Gov. Ducey plans no new restrictions for Arizona as COVID-19 cases rise

[OnDoutside]

PHOENIX – Gov. Doug Ducey said Thursday that he does not intend to impose new restrictions on Arizonans — or even require them to wear masks — despite more people contracting COVID-19.

In fact, look for him to actually move in the opposite direction.

“We’re seeing increasing cases,” he said during a media briefing.

That was underscored by figures from his own Department of Health Services showing a record 1,291 patients in Arizona hospitals. And that doesn’t count another 429 in intensive-care beds, a figure exceeded only by a peak of 438 just three days earlier. And the number of COVID-19 patients seen in the emergency room his 848, trying a record set just two days ago. All totaled, Arizona has now logged 31,264 confirmed cases of the virus with 1,127 deaths, including 34 just Thursday alone.

But the governor is undeterred, rebuffing a question of whether he would consider reimposing some of the restrictions he first put in place in March like his stay-home order and restricting commercial activity to only essential businesses.

“It’s not under discussion,” he said. Instead, Ducey is focused on moving forward.

“We’re going to continue our gradual and phased-in reopening,” the governor said. “We will balance public health with public safety.”

State health director Cara Christ put a finer point on it, saying the measures that had previously been imposed were designed to ensure that Arizona had enough hospital capacity to deal with an outbreak.

https://tucson.com/news/local/gov-ducey-plans-no-new-restrictions-for-arizona-as-covid-19-cases-rise/article_5774017b-4eaa-5d00-b178-52e28dee9610.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1

[DBoon]

1. Translation

"We don't care if you die as long as you don't make us look bad by using too many hospital beds"

[lapfog_1]

2. If you have trouble breathing

a) if you are black or hispanic and a younger male - try to get the cop off your neck after that traffic stop for changing lanes without signaling. You won't succeed so...

b) if you are older and likely have Covid-19, please do us a favor and die at home... and the coroner will list your death as "from something else" so our stats don't look bad.

c) other - well, there really isn't an other.

[soothsayer]

3. Putting out those embers? Those sparks?

Those little fires?

Yeah, not seeing it.

[sdfernando]

4. How is opening up and exposing untold thousands to the deadly COVID-19 virus

accomplishing any of this???

“We will balance public health with public safety.”

Opening up and dropping mask restrictions does the exact opposite!

....so tell me gov ducey, will you be going out without a mask and mixing with your constituents? Going to meetings and other public gatherings and pressing the flesh like all politicians do?

[Midnightwalk]

5. A little reminder - they were told this would happen and fired the scientists.

If only there were a way we could have known this would have happened. There was.

Just hours after Ducey announced on Monday that he’s accelerating the reopening of parts of the state’s economy, state health officials told a team of university experts to stop working on models that project what will happen next.

The universities’ models had shown that the only way to avoid a dramatic spike in cases was to delay reopening the state until the end of May.

Instead, Ducey will rely on a federal model – one we aren’t allowed to even see.

That's right, scientists at the University of Arizona said this would happen and were told to stop working on their model. Ducey and Christ went with Trump's super secret federal "Remain calm all is well." model instead.

But Christ explained why there was no reason to worry.

Dr. Cara Christ, director of the state Department of Health Services, downplayed the decision.

“We just asked them to take a pause for a little bit,” she told The Arizona Republic’s Rachel Leingang. “We are continuing to get updated FEMA models and we think that that is really representative of where we are.”

[link:https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2020/05/06/arizona-not-ready-reopen-asu-ua-coronavirus-models-say-fired/5175510002/|]

Cara Christ is making a career of using bad information to form bad policies. You see, they miscounted the number of hospital beds.

The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) has been overreporting the number of hospital beds currently available and in use in Arizona due to staff members' confusion about the hospitals' licensed bed capacity and surge capacity.

The department made changes to the coronavirus data dashboard Saturday.

"When we found that, we were like we need to correct that because that's not right," said Dr. Cara Christ, the Director of the ADHS.

[link:https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/national/coronavirus/arizona-dept-of-health-says-it-reported-incorrect-number-of-available-hospital-beds-amid-pandemic|]

You think Cara? That's some real good thinking there.

There are a bunch of other annoying facts/quotes in article in the original port. Arizona keeps electing idiots to state government.
It'd be nice to go back to having a Democratic governor. It was a shame losing Napolitano.