Their year was not like your year.
Their job put them at the very center of the most disruptive event in our lifetimes – the COVID-19 pandemic.
They are tens of thousands of Arizona nurses, doctors and support staff who risked their lives for their fellow Arizonans.
Many not only served our state but left their families to help the sick and dying in other places aflame with the virus. Many served with the Arizona National Guard.
At the close of one of the most stressful years in memory, we celebrate those who worked in the COVID-19 wards of hospitals and health clinics across this state.
Pima County issued a new public health advisory Monday, warning that local hospitals are âdangerously closeâ to being overwhelmed by unprecedented levels of new COVID-19 infections, which in December are expected to exceed all previous months of the pandemic combined.
In addition to adherence to the countyâs mask and curfew mandates, the county Health Department is asking residents to limit gatherings to fewer than 10 people and is asking all businesses to reduce their indoor occupancy to 25%.
Since Dec. 1, Pima County has recorded more than 20,000 new cases of coronavirus, 214 deaths, extremely low hospital bed availability and a record number of 120 COVID-19 patients on ventilators.
Tucson Medical Center cancels elective surgeries tucson.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tucson.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The pandemic is getting worse, with another week of record-breaking COVID-19 metrics â or measurements that health experts use to gauge the severity of the pandemic.
Case counts in Pima County have never been higher and hospital capacity has never been lower across the state.
But the avalanche of coronavirus statistics, charts and graphics might make it more difficult for many people to know which metrics matter most.
âThere is no magic metric,â said Kacey Ernst, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizonaâs Zuckerman College of Public Health. âYou need to have multiple metrics.â
Each one tells us something different, but public-health officials look to certain ones to make decisions and recommendations.
The goal since the pandemic started last March has been to keep hospitals from reaching capacity, but weâre past that now: Pima Countyâs hospitals are full and COVID-19 case counts keep reaching record highs.
âWeâve been talking about when the time would come when we are overwhelmed,â said Dr. Shannon Thorn, a Tucson infectious-disease specialist, âand we have reached that time.â
Thorn, who provides help at several local hospitals, said the number of available staffed hospital beds fluctuates depending on patients being discharged, transferred or dying.
On Wednesday night, one ICU bed became open. It filled immediately.