Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumAaand Here We Go - AZ Bighorn Fire @ 6,200 Acres, Growing; AZ Hospitals @ 84% Of Capacity 3 Days Ago
Arizonas Bighorn fire, which began smoldering June 5 after a lightning strike, has grown to more than 6,200 acres and is tearing through the suburb of Catalina Foothills, about 10 miles from Tucson. Residents in the area face evacuation orders, with 7,400 homes at risk.
The United States faces an extreme weather season like weve never seen before. Scientists predict an extraordinarily hot summer, one that could put 2020 on track for the hottest year ever. These are the perfect conditions for out-of-control wildfires. And were going to see many more of these fires throughout the summer and fall: The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings for California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah on Friday, meaning the states experiencing the dry and warm weather conditions that could turn a small fire into a devastating one.
Last month, I attended a workshop for journalists about covering wildfires. Jim Whittington, a crisis communications expert in wildfire management, warned us about the unprecedented challenge of a big fire year influenced by climate change in the middle of a global pandemic. He was right: Arizona is now facing a significant second wave of coronavirus infections, as COVID-19 hospitalizations rose 49 percent from May 26 to June 9, the second-biggest jump in the country. The state reopened May 15, and the trouble began a few weeks later: Cases rose from 200 a day in late May to more than 1,400 a day this week. After the loosening of some restrictions, we are now seeing a surge in hospitalizations, a surge in ICU usage and of course, unfortunately, a surge in the death rate, Matthew Heinz, an internist at Tucson Medical Center, told ABC News this week.
The pandemic adds a major new burden to an emergency response system that was already stretched thin. After natural disasters, FEMA is supposed to help evacuate people and coordinate the distribution of supplies like masks, food, and water. But the agency is already strained by the COVID-19 crisis, having headed into it with leadership vacancies and staff shortages. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has hamstrung the agency with insufficient budgeting and staffing: In 2018, the president diverted $10 million from FEMAs budget to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I explained:
FEMA has suspended its pre-hurricane season in-person training sessions to comply with social distancing guidelinesand this comes on top of a longstanding problem of training deficits: In 2018, the independent Government Accountability Office knocked FEMA for having insufficient training and information provided to staff in the field, particularly that FEMA staff in all 14 of our focus groups cited issues with personnel who were deemed qualified but didnt have the skills to effectively perform their jobs, which affected disaster assistance. On top of the training issues, FEMAs union said it headed into the pandemic with 20 percent of its 5,000 full-time positions vacant.
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https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/06/bighorn-fire-covid/
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While testing has increased over the last couple weeks, which could cause an uptick in new cases, the proportion of positive tests has also increased in recent weeks. For specimen collected June 7, 13% of tests were positive, compared to a low of 5% positive for specimen collected May 3. Nearly 8% of the states tests have come back positive.
There is no way to attribute a trend to one event. Transmissions occur, probably extra ones on a holiday like Memorial Day, which lead to cases and hospitalizations, Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said.
Arizona hospitals reported that they were at 84% capacity for inpatient beds and 78% for intensive-care beds on Wednesday.
However, the states department of health shows that a large portion of its ventilators are still available for critically-ill patients.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/11/arizona-coronavirus-cases-nearly-double-since-memorial-day-as-state-nears-hospital-capacity.html
2naSalit
(86,647 posts)NE Montana that is. Expecting dangerous wind and thunderstorms as a slightly cooler air mass moves in over the weekend.
beachbumbob
(9,263 posts)OnlinePoker
(5,722 posts)There are 3692 hospitalizations for Covid (11% of total), but it's showing 1379 intensive care spaces taken (79% of capacity) as of the 12th on hospital usage,and definitely trending up.
https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/infectious-disease-epidemiology/covid-19/dashboards/index.php
beachbumbob
(9,263 posts)OnlinePoker
(5,722 posts)We had the first outbreak in Canada of Covid-19. Under the outstanding guidance of our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, we have had a total of 2709 cases (AZ - 34458), have had 168 confirmed deaths (AZ - 1183) and currently have 3 in ICU (AZ - 1317). Did we have to go through pain to achieve these numbers? Definitely. Our economy took a big hit. But the collective response to controlling the virus outweighed the individual right to do whatever the hell you felt like. Unlike Arizona (and Ontario and Quebec here in Canada), we took the virus seriously and reacted seriously.
beachbumbob
(9,263 posts)don't understand. We will pay a huge price.