Update on Covid-19 in Arizona

Arizona is still the nation’s hot-spot for Covid-19, but in recent weeks hospitalizations due to the virus have been slowly decreasing. We talked about that, along with new vaccines and new strains of the virus with Will Humble, the Executive Director of the Arizona Public Health Association.

Firstly he spoke of the South African variant of the virus, saying that he would be surprised if it is not already circulating in Arizona, but went on to explain, “The good news is both of the vaccines that are out right, Pfizer and Moderna, fully cover the South African varIant not quite as robust as the other circulating strains that are out there but far enough protection to keep you from having especially a bad outcome or even getting ill at all if you do happen to come across that South African variant.”

Moving forward the conversation turned to the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine that is expected to come out soon. To that end on his forecast for Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine Humble stated, “I would expect that if everything goes well, and I expect it to go well, we could see some Johnson and Johnson vaccine being shipped into Arizona in mid-February and that would be terrific because this vaccine is so much more flexible than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine because it’s a refrigerator vaccine. Simple storage just like any other vaccine just like pharmacy’s and doctors offices are used to. So where I see this fitting in is it’s a great niche product to fill doctors offices and pharmacies so that you can get the vaccine to people as opposed to what these pods do which is get people to the vaccine.”

The general takeaway is that Humble seems hopeful for the direction Arizona could be heading, and for a state that has been a hot bed for weeks, that is promising.