Arizona reports over 4,000 additional COVID cases, 51 deaths

Just over 12K Arizona kids are vaccinated against COVID-19, AZDHS says

Arizona health officials are urging all who are able to receive a COVID-19 to get it ahead of the holiday season, including kids ages 5-11.

PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona on Friday reported over 4,000 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases, one of the largest daily increases in months.

The Department of Health Services’ coronavirus dashboard reported 4,447 additional cases and 51 deaths, raising the pandemic totals to 1,207,348 cases and 21,600 deaths.

Friday’s report and the 3,624 additional cases reported Thursday were larger than they normally would be because of a now-resolved recent electronic reporting problem, the department said.

"That said," the department said in a brief statement, "COVID-19 cases have been increasing in recent weeks, driving home the need for continuing tiered strategies of vaccination and mitigation, including masks and distancing indoors around those you don’t live with."

Even with the delayed reporting of some recent cases, Arizona had reported over 3,000 additional cases on seven of the past 10 days and over 2,000 on the others.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in rose over the past two weeks, increasing from 2,486.3 on Oct. 27 to 3,339.7 on Wednesday.

According to the state dashboard, the number of COVID-19 patients occupying inpatient hospital beds dropped for the first time in a week, decreasing from 2,113 on Wednesday to 2,083 as of Thursday.