Governor Ducey’s executive order lifting COVID restrictions

Governor Doug Ducey released an executive order lifting COVID restrictions on businesses and events. We talked to Will Humble, the Arizona Public Executive Director of the Arizona Public Health Association, about this and what it means. Humble was also the former State Health Director.

Humble doesn’t believe the executive order will make that much of a difference. He said this is because there was so little enforcement in the first place. “A requirement without enforcement is really just a recommendation anyway,” he said.

We asked about the reasons for the decision. The Governor’s office said some of the reasons include the number of people vaccinated, ten weeks of declining cases and low hospitalizations. Humble said another reason is The number of Arizonans that have had the virus and recovered. All of the things put together make sense, he said. Humble also said he does not see Arizona heading for another hospital crisis.

We also discussed the new variants in Arizona and how they play a part in this. Humble says some of them are problematic, but the United States was able to get ahead of that variant with vaccinations. Humble said he believes the number of cases will stabilize, and not go up or down.

We also talk more about vaccinations and the effort to get everyone that wants to be vaccinated. Humble talks about the group of people that are not getting access to the vaccine. Lastly, Humble said we are definitely past the worst of it in the United States.