TUCSON, Ariz. — Arizona passed one million confirmed COVID-19 cases Friday.
“It is indeed a staggering and very sobering number. But I’ll tell you what it means here in Pima County. About 12.6 percent of those cases are Pima County residents. That is still a very large proportion,” said Pima County Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Francisco Garcia.
Though a smaller percentage it still amounts for thousands of Pima County residents. Dr. Garcia says, as of Friday, Pima County is well into a fourth surge.
“A piece of good news. We really are actually doing pretty darn well. However you want to slice the vaccination story, we are doing really, really pretty darn well. Certainly better than the state and better than the country as a whole,” said Garcia.
Though he says Pima County is fairing well with vaccination numbers, the county continues to see a high number of unvaccinated individuals in hospitals.
“The people in hospitals right now who have COVID, out of those 3,000-plus hospitalizations that have occurred since January, less than two percent have been fully vaccinated,” said Garcia.
And out of the 809 COVID-related deaths since January, he says its less than four of them were fully vaccinated.
With the county and city-wide push to get more vaccinated, residents are pushing back. Demonstrations took place last week, fighting against company and city vaccine mandates. The city of Tucson released the chart below, showing hundreds of city employees that did not get vaccinated before the set Aug. 24 deadline.
Dr. Garcia did not comment on the way the entities implement vaccine mandates, but did have this to say, “At the end of the day, it is helpful for everyone who is of vaccine eligible age to be vaccinated. We generally support the move of all of our employers who are trying to make that happen.”
