Arizona’s Failure with Coronavirus: Stay Away to Stay Healthy
by Robert McGarvey
I remember looking with horror as the first waves of coronavirus cases surfaced in Washington State, northern California, and downstate New York – and my horror was mixed with a superiority, the distinct perspective that, lucky me, I live in Phoenix, no longer in greater New York and, like Alfred E. Neuman, it was what me worry time.
To paraphrase the poet Bob Dylan, now I don’t talk so loud, now I don’t seem so proud.
My smugness collapsed in late March when I personally fell ill with Covid-19, a fact shown by a recent antibody test that indicated the 10 feverish days I stayed in bed were in fact due to the virus. My illness is documented in a pair of blogs, Coronavirus and Me, The Sequel and Coronavirus and Me.
Being sick with coronavirus sucks and my advice is that if you don’t want to join me in that club, stay away from Arizona and if you are already here stay away from crowds, wear face masks, and practice thorough handwashing. Do all that because, in Arizona now, the virus is a vigorous beast that essentially has risen from the dead. On March 31, the government issued a stay at home order that shut bars, restaurants, gyms and more and many workplaces and retail also shuttered. The virus went into retreat.
No more. In May most restrictions were lifted – and what was sure to follow has.
That’s because Arizona has joined a kind of club of infamy where – after state coronavirus restrictions were eased – cases skyrocketed. It’s true in Florida, in Texas, and, definitely, Arizona, which have emerged as a laughingstock trio, a triumvirate of mismanagement.
Just that is the thing: New York did not mismanage coronavirus. Neither did Washington State. They did not have much of a clue what they were dealing with (and in New York’s case it even was dealing with a different, European strain).
In Arizona nothing is new, everything was predicted – and ignored by Governor Doug Ducey, a business executive turned politician who – plainly – is in way over his head when it comes to managing a public health crisis.
The numbers are his report card: Day after day, new records are set. Hospitals are stuffed with patients and now are permitted to ration care based in part about how likely a patient is to survive.
The July 1 AZ Republic headline: “Arizona COVID-19 update: Nearly 4,900 new cases, 88 more deaths reported, shattering daily records.”
How did we get from having the virus cornered into our present predicament? This Arizona Republic headline tells the story: Over 4 months, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s actions to fight COVID-19 slowed as virus spread.
A more accurate headline might have pointed to Ducey’s inactions because he has done more of that than taking actual actions. Perhaps Ducey Dozes, Covid Soars.
Case in point: as new cases started to spike in early June, first Ducey declined to issue a statewide face mask requirement and he also refused to give cities – such as Phoenix where the mayor had been begging to be allowed to require face masks – the right to issue requirements. Finally he caved and Phoenix, Tucson and other cities imposed face mask requirements. But how many got sick because of the delay?
How many died?
Why the opposition to masks? Why Ducey’s opposition to doing much of anything to thwart Covid-19?
Masks are the local symbol. The Guardian newspaper observed: “Masks have become a charged partisan issue in Arizona, one of the key swing states in the 2020 presidential election. As thousands of people watched Ducey’s press conference live on Facebook, many commenters demanded, ‘Make masks mandatory!’ but others pushed back: ‘Breathing is not aggression. Fear is not a virtue,’ one posted.”
Neighboring Scottsdale, by the way, claims a city councilman, Guy Phillips, who in a protest against face masks insisted, “I can’t breathe.”
Many here share similar antediluvian views and, more often than not, those are the voices Ducey hears.
Of course that crowd has a powerful leader. Trump, the president who refuses to wear a mask, visited Arizona just 10 days ago and, nope, not many mask wearers in the sparse crowd. And Ducey seems to believe that his only way forward is to curry Trump’s favor.
While ever growing numbers of Arizonans get sick, many die, and still the governor declines to reimpose smart and safe requirements for life in the Covid-19 era.
Oh, he did recently close bars, gyms, movie theaters and a few other kinds of places again – but so far gym operators are giving him the proverbial finger and staying open because, well, why pay him much mind?
As for me, I live with full knowledge that I am surrounded by a local epidemic that the federal and state governments are mismanaging. I mainy stay indoors. I avoid crowds as best I can. I wear masks, certainly whenever indoors in a public space such as a grocer (count me a fan of the Whole Foods senior hour), and of course I wear Hawaiian shirts because it’s a hoot.
It’s what we can do, to stay personally healthy, to minimize disease spread, and thus to restart the inert economy. I am doing my part. You?