What You Need to Know-Week of April 25th
The most important weekly updates for you to keep your community healthy
In this Update:
1. Urgent Updates: COVID-19 Metric
2. Information You Need: Menstrual Changes and COVID-19 – A paper out of the Arizona CoVHORT
3. Testing Tips: More, free COVID-19 tests available for order
1. Urgent Updates: COVID-19 Metrics
Updated as of: 04-25-2022
Weekly case, death, and hospitalization counts
| In the past week, there has been an average of: | |
| Cases per day | 340 |
| Deaths per day | 4 |
| Compared to two weeks ago: | |
| Cases per day | Decreased by 35% ↓ |
| Deaths per day | Decreased by 93% ↓ |
| Hospitalizations per day | Decreased by 8% ↓ |
See breakdown of vaccination by Arizona counties
See updated vaccine information and data in Arizona
2. Information You Need: Menstrual Changes and COVID-19 – A paper out of the Arizona CoVHORT
There are many ongoing efforts to better understand the long-term health effects of COVID-19. The Arizona CoVHORT, a large, Arizona-based, longitudinal cohort study, is participating in these efforts.
Two members of the Arizona CoVHORT team (Sana Khan, MPH and Alexandra Shilen, MPH) lead a brief research paper examining changes to the menstrual cycle after a SARS-CoV-2 infection among CoVHORT participants. The paper was recently published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
The team analyzed data from 127 women and nonbinary CoVHORT participants and found that 16% of the participants reported changes to their menstrual cycle after having a COVID-19 infection. The most commonly reported changes were irregular menstruation (60%), increase in premenstrual syndrome symptoms (PMS) (45%), and infrequent menstruation (35%). Those participants who reported changes to their menstrual cycle were more likely to report a greater number of Covid-19 symptoms, including fatigue, headache, body aches and pains, and shortness of breath and to identify as Hispanic when compared to those who reported no changes to their menstrual cycle.
read the full published article
Very few studies have explicitly examined this long-term health consequence of COVID-19 survivors. One study published more than a year before Khan and Shilen’s paper found that 28% of their 177 participants noted menstrual changes.
visit UofA CoVHORT for more information
3. Testing Tips: More, free COVID-19 tests available for order
As of March 2022, all U.S. households are eligible to receive 2 sets of free at-home COVID-19 tests (each containing four tests). If you have already ordered the first set that was available in January 2022, you can now order the second set of tests. The ordering process is quick and easy – just visit this website, fill out your name and address for one person in your household, and your tests will soon be on the way!
The website also lists resources for obtaining other COVID-19 tests (e.g., a PCR test) and information about insurance reimbursement for at-home tests purchased from a pharmacy or other location.
If you test positive on a home test you can help the health department understand how much transmission is happening and report your test result to your health care provider. If you live in Pima County, you can simply report your positive test here.
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.