Medical & Clinical Research

Author(s): Howard J. Eng, MS, DrPH, RPh

It had been four years since COVID-19 first appeared in Arizona on January 22, 2020. The state is about the same size as Italy. Since Arizona Governor Doug Ducey had declared a State of Emergency to combat COVID-19 on March 11, 2020, the state had gone through three Reopening Phases. ABC and NBC News reported that the state had the highest new cases per capital in the world during Arizona’s Reopening Phase 2 winter surge in 2020. The state had been in Reopening Phase 3 (final phase) since March 5, 2021. Arizona had the highest death rate per capital of all the 50 states in 2021-22 reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The study examined four years of the state’s COVID-19 pandemic. On December 27, 2023, the four-year totals were 2,540,562 COVID-19 cases, 149,121 hospitalizations, and 33,900 deaths. During the first three years, the case numbers rose (590,745 in 2020, 827,573 in 2021, and 988,649 in 2022), but in the fourth year, the case number had dropped significantly (168,918 in 2023). There were seven case surges during the four years. Arizona had been in the endemic phase of the virus for the past six months. The new normal was not zero cases, but a low number of severe cases, manageable hospitalization numbers, and low number of deaths.