COVID-19 spread is at an all-time high in southern Arizona, said the Pima County Public Health Director Dr. Terry Cullen.
The county’s seven-day average is 439 cases a day, a significant jump from from mid-October when the county's daily rolling average was just 59 cases, which was still too high, but manageable for public health workers, Cullen said. It also surpasses average amounts it saw in the summer, she added.
This increase is also being seen in the county's wastewater testing data.
“On Friday, we had the highest particulate of SARS-COV-2 virus in the wastewater in the Tucson area that we have recorded since we started recording which is March," Cullen said.
The number of hospitalizations is also going up and the county’s ICU bed availability is now in the single digits, she said. The health department is looking at steps it could take to control spread such as implementing a voluntary curfew after seeing how successful the University of Arizona’s voluntary quarantine was, Cullen said.
“Our goal is to keep you safe," she said. "You are safest at home. You are not safe in large social gatherings.”
Pima County is already expanding its COVID-19 testing by offering tests for travelers arriving at the Tucson airport, she said.
