What You Need to Know-Week of March 28th
The most important weekly updates for you to keep your community healthy
In this Update:
1. Urgent Updates: COVID-19 Metrics
2. Information You Need: Long-COVID research paper out of the Arizona CoVHORT
3. Information You Need: Arizona 2-1-1 Resource Reminder
1. Urgent Updates: COVID-19 Metrics
Updated as of: 03-29-2022
Weekly case, death, and hospitalization counts
| In the past week, there has been an average of: | |
| Cases per day | 652 |
| Deaths per day | 48 |
| Compared to two weeks ago: | |
| Cases per day | Decreased by 30% ↓ |
| Deaths per day | Increased by 124% ↑ |
| Hospitalizations per day | Decreased by 34% ↓ |
See breakdown of vaccination by Arizona counties
See updated vaccine information and data in Arizona
2. Information You Need: Long-COVID research paper out of the Arizona CoVHORT
What is PASC?
There are many ongoing efforts to better understand long-COVID (also called post acute sequela of COVID-19 (PASC)) and its associated health effects. The Arizona CoVHORT study, as we have mentioned previously, is participating in these efforts. Keep reading to see what they have learned so far!
In August 2021, Dr. Melanie Bell, Collin Catalfamo, and other University of Arizona researchers on the CoVHORT team published a research article discussing the prevalence of long-COVID within CoVHORT participants. Long-COVID is characterized as new or persistent symptoms following the acute phase of a SARS-CoV-2 infection – typically a month or so after the initial infection. Dr. Bell and others used CoVHORT data to estimate the prevalence of long-COVID and individual symptoms experienced by participants. Of the 3,468 participants involved in the CoVHORT at the time of the study, 303 non-hospitalized individuals with a positive lab-confirmed COVID-19 test were included in the analysis and followed for a median of 61 days (range 30-250). 68.7% of the study sample was found to have long-COVID at 30 days post-infection. The most common symptoms were fatigue (37.5%), shortness-of-breath (37.5%), brain fog (30.8%), and stress/anxiety (30.8%).
read the full published article
Since this study has been published, others have found similar results about the prevalence of long-COVID. A meta-analysis published in October 2021 found that over 60% of patients infected by SARS-CoV-2 experienced post-COVID-19 symptoms. A lot still remains unknown about long-COVID, but recent research suggests that women, those who had more severe cases of COVID-19, and older or elderly individuals may be at heightened risk for developing long-COVID.
If you are interested in learning more, here are some additional resources:
– General long COVID information
o View the CoVHORT webinar where CoVHORT researchers discussed and answered questions about long COVID
– Long COVID and children:
o A large cohort study on long COVID symptoms in children
– Loss of smell as a result of COVID-19:
o Loss of smell is a commonly reported symptom of long COVID. If you or anyone you know is experiencing a loss of smell as a result of COVID-19 and have not found relief, visit obscent to learn more about smell training.
– Long COVID support website:
o Resources and information about long COVID created by individuals struggling to recover from COVID-19.
3. Information You Need: Arizona 2-1-1 Resource Reminder
Are you hoping to have specific COVID-19 questions answered? Or are you needing assistance with transportation, rent, or utilities? Arizona has developed a 2-1-1 initiative that helps anyone access information and resources for a variety of different topics, including financial assistance, health care, and mental health services. For more information about the program, you can visit 211arizona.org, or dial 2-1-1 from anywhere within Arizona (if you are located outside of Arizona, please dial 877-211-8661).
If you would like to learn more about this and other topics related to COVID-19 in Arizona, please complete next week’s AZCOVIDTXT survey that you will receive via text in about a week.