The deadline to submit applications for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program is extended until Thursday, May 27 at 7:30pm ET. We are excited to award a record number of clinicians this year thanks to additional funding through the Biden Administration's American Rescue Plan. Don't wait - apply today!
Get specific details on eligibility and how to apply on the NHSC website.
» Apply here.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has opened the 2021 Nurse Corps Scholarship Program (SP) application cycle.
Nurse Corps SP provides financial support to students enrolled in nursing degree programs in exchange for a commitment to serve in high-need areas across the country. Scholarship support includes payment of tuition, required fees, other reasonable educational costs, as well as a monthly living stipend. After graduation, scholarship recipients fulfill their service commitment at an approved health care facility with a critical shortage of nurses.
HRSA has received a historic increase in funding this year under the American Rescue Plan. With this additional funding, Nurse Corps anticipates making significantly more awards overall, including in the following areas:
Visit the Nurse Corps Scholarship Program and Nurse Corps Facebook pages to learn more.
Before applying, review the Application and Program Guidance (APG) for information on eligibility and requirements.
The application cycle closes on May 6.
University of Arizona News | March 19, 2021
Researchers in the UArizona's Southwest Institute for Research on Women will study how policy changes during the pandemic have affected access to medication for opioid use disorder, especially for rural and tribal communities.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, overdose deaths increased 38.4% in a 12-month period in the United States – the largest increase in the nation's history. The health crisis was especially felt in Arizona communities, which have higher overdose rates and lower access to opioid treatment providers than the national average.
Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic also created an opportunity to improve access to medication for opioid use disorder, or MOUD, which is considered the "gold standard" treatment and includes methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone. During the pandemic, federal regulators relaxed policies to make it easier for people to access MOUD treatment without risking in-person interactions. What remains to be learned is which Arizona MOUD providers implemented these flexible policies and how that affected patient health.
The University of Arizona Southwest Institute for Research on Women, or SIROW, received a $230,357 grant from the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts, or FORE, to study the impact of COVID-19 on MOUD access and patient health. The research team will document the effects of policy changes made as a result of the pandemic by conducting a survey of 1,000 Arizona MOUD providers and interviews with 200 MOUD patients, with a focus on rural and tribal communities.
"This is a community-based action research project to address the maldistribution of MOUD in Arizona," said Beth Meyerson, principal investigator and research professor with SIROW. Meyerson noted that the opportunity came out of a longstanding relationship with the community.
"Our partners identified this as an opportunity to create evidence to inform federal policy," she said.
"We have a short window of time to evaluate the impact of temporary policy changes related to providing medications for opioid use disorder and telehealth so we can develop longer-term, evidence-based solutions that sustain access to better and more equitable care beyond the pandemic," said Dr. Karen A. Scott, president of FORE. "We are proud to partner with the University of Arizona on this initiative, which includes an important focus on access and equity issues facing tribal, rural and remote communities, as well as other communities of color."
The study is led by a multidisciplinary research team and involves multiple UArizona centers and community partners. At UArizona, SIROW's Meyerson, Keith Bentele and Brenda Granillo will join Ben Brady, a researcher with the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and the Comprehensive Pain and Addiction Center.
Christopher Abert, executive director of the Southwest Recovery Alliance, or SWRA, and Danielle Russell from Sonoran Prevention Works are the community-based co-investigators. The project will be directed by a statewide MOUD Patient and Provider Advisory Board, and patient interviews will be conducted by trained community members.
"It means a lot to us that FORE and SIROW have chosen to advance patient-centered, evidence-based solutions," Abert said. "This study will ensure that people living with opioid use disorder can be co-creators of evidence to influence policy changes and address health inequities."
"This project represents the community-based action research that SIROW is known for," said Josephine Korchmaros, director of SIROW, which is housed in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. "This is an opportunity to create policy and system changes that will impact people's lives for years to come."
PHOENIX MAGAZINE | Keridwen Cornelius | March 4, 2021
The solitary, satchel-carrying rural doctor is etched into our enduring fantasy about small-town Arizona. But such physicians are fading away. The doctors are gone, but the towns – and the medically underserved people who live in them – remain.
A few years ago, Dr. Molly Anderson – the only physician serving the verdant Southern Arizona village of Patagonia – was called for jury duty. As she sat in the small-town courtroom, each potential juror was asked if they knew anyone involved in the case. Anderson recalls looking around and thinking, “Well, the defendant is a patient. The victim is a patient. The witnesses are patients. The detective is a patient. And I can’t say this because of privacy laws.”
Fortunately, she didn’t need to breach confidentiality. One after the other, they all admitted to knowing her. The “everybody knows your name” phenomenon is one of the side effects of practicing in a one-doc town – a bucolic lifestyle immortalized in shows like Northern Exposure and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
But the solo family physician on the frontier is fast going the way of fiction. In 1983, 40 percent of the nation’s doctors practiced alone, according to the American Medical Association. By 2018, that number had fallen to less than 15 percent, underscoring a troubling fact: Arizona suffers from a huge shortage of primary care physicians (PCPs). To meet its needs, the state currently requires an extra 563 PCPs, plus an additional 1,941 by 2030, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration.
The scarcity is felt most acutely in rural areas, which struggle to recruit and retain physicians and are hemorrhaging hospitals and health clinics. According to an informal PHOENIX magazine study of Arizona Medical Board licenses and medical clinics statewide, only about a half-dozen true one-doctor towns remain. Most Arizona towns of 1,000 residents or less have no dedicated local physician – they’re zero-doctor towns.
That’s certainly a loss for people living in these “medical deserts” scattered around the state. And it may also be a loss for clinicians. Because some family docs in remote Arizona towns like Patagonia, Seligman and Safford say small-town medicine epitomizes the kind of personalized, caring experience that both doctors and patients desire. Unfortunately, that too is disappearing. But some country docs in Arizona are trying to keep the tradition alive.
It wasn’t blind fate that conspired to make Dr. Michael Druschel the lone physician serving the Route 66 outpost of Seligman. He grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania and has always gravitated to blink-and-you-miss-’em burgs. That’s not unusual. A rural background is the strongest predictor that a doctor will choose to practice in a rural location, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
A year and a half ago, Druschel moved to Flagstaff, where his wife and two daughters can enjoy urban amenities and he can pursue his passions for skiing, biking and running. Three days a week, he works at the North Country HealthCare clinic in Williams. And once a week, he puts on a podcast or audiobook and drives a little over an hour to the smaller clinic in Seligman (population: 776).
Again, that’s not unusual. In the past, solo country docs often hung their shingle in their hometown. But in today’s consolidated system, rural physicians are typically employed by a company that operates several full- or part-time satellite facilities. So practitioners may toggle between clinics in Green Valley, Arivaca and Amado, or Parker, Quartzsite and Bouse.
Rural populations skew older, and that’s certainly true in Seligman, which attracts retirees seeking an off-grid, nostalgic lifestyle. So Druschel, a family medicine M.D., does a lot of geriatric care. But in the absence of nearby specialists, he also has to be a sort of Swiss Army knife in scrubs, wielding a range of skills with aplomb. And that suits Druschel just fine. “I’m someone who likes variety,” he says. “I’m someone who also likes procedures. So if I can do something safely in my clinic, I usually like to try to find a way to make it happen.”
On one recent patient, Druschel personally performed an echocardiogram, plus a lung and abdominal ultrasound, then inserted an IV and ran the fluid, drew blood, and finally sent the blood via courier to a lab. He’s conducted a sleep study in a patient’s home, provides basic counseling and prescribes psychiatric medicine. “I feel I make deeper connections with my patients,” he says, “because they really come to rely on me… since I’m the one managing the majority of their medical issues.”
Since many older patients can no longer drive long distances, and some lack the transportation or inclination to leave town, frontier family physicians sometimes have to treat conditions that push them to the limits of their comfort zones. In Patagonia, Anderson recalls a patient who came to her clinic with a severe laceration. She recommended heading to the hospital. But the patient gave her an ultimatum: “Either you do it, or it’s not gonna get done.”
Unlike Druschel, Anderson comes from an urban background. The family physician grew up in Phoenix, attended college in Los Angeles and went to the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine in Tucson. The first 12 years of her career, she logged 80-hour weeks in urgent care at a Tucson clinic. When her husband retired, she decided she wanted a lifestyle that made room for her hobbies: hiking, serving on Democratic Party committees, volunteering with the Unitarian Church and writing bawdy limericks.
» Continue reading/view photos at link below, or download PDF
Arizona's Native American population has been hit disproportionately hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Native Americans make up about 5% of Arizona's population but at least 8% of the state’s deaths from the virus. But since vaccines started rolling out across the state, Native Americans have been getting vaccinated at higher rates than the general population. Agnes Attakai, a member of the Navajo Nation and director of Health Disparities Outreach and Prevention Education at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is interviewed.
Listen to the interview with Agnes Attakai:
3/9/21 | KJZZ-FM (NPR) Phoenix, AZ
3/9/21 | Fronteras
The Santa Fe New Mexican | By Rick Ruggles rruggles@sfnewmexican.com | Mar 5, 2021
The New Mexico Department of Health will soon identify in its coronavirus vaccination invitations which vaccine a person will receive, and most experts urge people to accept any of the three.
“Please get a vaccine as soon as you are eligible,” the Health Department said Friday. “It could save your life.”
The matter is considered pertinent because some Catholics and evangelical Christians have discouraged use of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine. They have questioned the morality of Johnson & Johnson’s use many years ago of fetal cell lines derived from abortions.
Archbishop John C. Wester of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe said this week that the availability of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine is encouraging. That vaccine requires only one dose, while the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines call for two, making the Johnson & Johnson inoculation more convenient for rural New Mexicans, he said.
Using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is fine, Wester said, because it moves the country closer to widespread immunity and promotes “protection of human life.” It is “entirely morally acceptable” to receive the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine or the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, he said.
Catholic leaders in St. Louis, New Orleans and other places have decried the ethics and morality of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Pfizer and Moderna used fetal cell lines in some of the testing of their vaccines, but Johnson & Johnson used them to help produce its vaccine. Regardless, the cell lines used in either testing or production are from abortions that took place decades ago.
The cells continue multiplying in laboratories and are long removed from the original fetal cell. Sciencemagazine reported that cell lines have been used since the 1960s to make vaccines against rubella and other diseases.
Most medical officials and organizations encourage getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine if it’s the one available.
“These cell lines are literally thousands of generations removed from when they originated,” said Daniel Derksen, a family physician and director of the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health. “There’s no tissue from a fetus. They’re not the same as aborted fetal tissue.”
Derksen said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has less stringent refrigeration requirements than the two others and “really helps states like New Mexico and Arizona,” with vast rural areas.
The New Mexico Department of Health said Friday: “To be clear … there is no fetal tissue in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.”
The Catholic-affiliated Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe will not offer people a choice of vaccines “and will be administering what we have available at the time,” Christus spokesman Arturo Delgado said in a statement. All three vaccines have proven effective in preventing hospitalizations, he said, “and our focus is on doing what’s best for our community.”
A 72-year-old Santa Fe woman said Friday she would accept any of the vaccines but hasn’t yet been invited. The woman, who asked that she not be named, said she has heart and breathing conditions, has an immune deficiency and is overweight. She said she can’t seem to get to the front of the list and that a 64-year-old friend in Santa Fe without underlying conditions has already received a shot.
“Something’s not right,” she said. “I’ll take whatever I can get. … I just want the vaccination.”
Dr. Tracie Collins, the state’s health secretary, said earlier in the week that the state had received 17,200 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Collins said the state would distribute those doses to the 10 counties with the lowest vaccine coverage.
Health Department spokesman Matt Bieber said Santa Fe and Bernalillo counties are among the 10. Bieber said the decision on which vaccine is offered will be based on what’s available. If a patient rejects the first invitation, they will be placed back in the line of eligible recipients.
“Not at the front or the back,” Bieber said in an email.
Derksen called all three “miracle vaccines” that are highly effective in preventing complications from the disease and death.
“That’s what we ought to be focused on,” he said.
By Jacob Holter | Cronkite News | Feb 25, 2021
WASHINGTON – Health officials confirmed COVID-19 in another 1,310 Arizonans Wednesday and reported that 43 more people died from the disease, according to the latest numbers from the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Depressing numbers – but a vast improvement from just six weeks ago, when the daily average of new cases in one week was 9,742 people and deaths were averaging 154 a day. And an indication, experts said, that the state may have finally turned a corner.
“I think we’ve definitely seen the worst of this pandemic,” said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association. “I think the worst of the worst will end up being that first two weeks of January.”
It comes as the national death toll topped 500,000 and the number of Americans infected with the disease passed 28 million. But it also comes as hospitalization rates have plummeted and vaccination efforts have started to take hold, with 65 million doses administered nationwide and almost 1.6 million in Arizona.
“We are getting much better at getting the COVID-19 vaccinations in people’s arms,” said Dr. Daniel Derksen, director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health. “We have certainly seen that in the large-population counties like Maricopa and Pima, who have been particularly effective in these things like State Farm Arena.”
Both Humble and Derksen said that, with vaccination efforts continuing to rise, they do not expect to see spikes again like the one the state saw in January. Humble blamed that surge on holiday parties and family gatherings that spread the virus, which showed up in new cases in early January.
Since the first of the year, cases in Arizona have risen from 520,196 to 808,895 and deaths have skyrocketed, from 8,864 to 15,693. Just over 60% of intensive-care unit beds in the state were occupied by COVID-19 patients, a number that would rise to 66% less than two weeks later.
But all the numbers have pointed down since then. Just 25% of ICU beds are now occupied by COVID-19 patients, the lowest percentage since mid-November, while deaths and new cases continue to drop.
There are still challenges ahead. A vaccination site at Chandler-Gilbert Community College will close for four days next week as it shifts from county to state management. And new coronavirus variants continue to pop up, presenting a new type of threat.
Winter storms that wreaked havoc in the South delayed delivery of some vaccines, Derksen said, with multiple county health departments telling the state health department they had to cancel appointments as a result. Coconino County said in a statement last week, for example, that “some vaccination sites must cancel and reschedule first dose appointments scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 18, and Friday, Feb 19.”
But Derksen said Arizona appears to be back on track.
More than 1.1 million Arizonans – 15.5% of the state’s population – have received at least one dose of vaccine so far, and 438,534 have received both doses to be fully immunized. The Chandler-Gilbert Community College site will be the fourth mass vaccination site when it reopens next week, and a new one-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson appears to be on the verge of approval.
Humble worries that the state may be rushing to open the pool of vaccine-eligible Arizonans too quickly to younger people, in a push to vaccinate essential workers.
“If you throw essential workers into the pot at this point, you dilute our ability to protect seniors, and they are the ones that are at the highest risk of having a bad outcome, filling our hospitals, and dying,” Humble said.
Despite their optimism, both Derksen and Humble stressed that this is not the time to let our guard down. They repeated the health care workers now-common refrain, urging people to continue social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands and staying home when sick.
“As we get more vaccinations done, and as people continue to take care of themselves by wearing masks, social distancing, and the other things that we have been trying to do for some time, we need to continue those because we are still in the first phase of immunizations and we really need to get those vaccinations to the general public,” said Derksen.
He is confident that if the state can keep up the pace of vaccinations, it will be in good shape. And once a majority of Arizonans are vaccinated, the population will be better protected against variants that may present themselves in the future.
But they caution that it will not happen overnight.
“I think we can really reduce the impact of this and get back to the new normal as they have been calling it,” Derksen said. “We are all eager for that to happen, but we still have a few months to go before we can get close to that.”
» Video and more at link below:
Watch the Arizona Public Media video:
Tony Paniagua: “COVID-19 Vaccine, How the Vaccine is Being Distributed in Rural Communities.”
Arizona 360 PBS 6 Tucson, PBS World Channel 8.3.
» Dan Derksen discusses distribution in rural areas starting at 19min:42sec.
By Sarah Oven | Cronkite News | February 15, 2021
WASHINGTON – Health advocates welcomed Monday’s reopening of enrollment for Affordable Care Act coverage, saying the opportunity for more people to get or renew their health insurance could be “really good for Arizona.”
The normal period for Americans to sign up for coverage ended Dec. 15, but President Joe Biden called for this special 90-day open enrollment period in response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
The change could open the door to subsidized health insurance for thousands in Arizona, where as many as 900,000 people may not have health insurance, according to Dr. Dan Derksen, director of the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health. Derksen said as many as half of those people could get covered under the ACA.
“This extension of the open enrollment period Is a way that we can get more information out there so that people understand what they might be eligible for, and then get enrolled,” Derksen said Monday, the first day of open enrollment.
Matt Eyles, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, praised the decision to reopen the enrollment period as a “timely and targeted” solution that is “exactly what Americans need.”
“Every American deserves access to affordable health coverage and high-quality care, and that is especially true during a pandemic,” Eyles said. “We appreciate the Biden administration for providing this additional opportunity for hardworking American families to enroll in coverage for their health and financial security as they continue to fight to overcome the COVID-19 crisis.”
The move also allows for further gains in enrollment under the ACA – also known as Obamacare – after years of steady declines under the Trump administration. Enrollment fell from 9.6 million nationwide in 2017 to 8.2 million in the open enrollment that ended in December. In Arizona, the numbers fell from 203,066 to 154,504 over the same period.
Advocates said the declines, which leveled off last year, were due to an “erosion” of support under President Donald Trump, including fewer staff to help people navigate the marketplace, shorter enrollment periods and a decrease in outreach resources.
The special open enrollment period, which is open until May 15, is the second move in two weeks by the Biden administration to reverse Trump administration policy in regard to the ACA.
The Supreme Court in November heard arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of the ACA, and the Trump administration had sided in that case with opponents of the law. But the deputy solicitor general wrote the court on Wednesday to say the Biden administration “has reconsidered the government’s position” and now argues that the law is constitutional and should stand, even if the court finds part of it is flawed.
The reversals are not surprising, said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, who called the Trump administration a “little hostile” to the ACA.
“I think we have people who are making decisions to use the funds that they currently have and ways to actually try to motivate and engage people in the marketplace, which was not the case under the Trump administration,” Humble said.
That was echoed by Derksen, who said that most people “realize that with the change in leadership at the national level there would be a renewed interest in the Affordable Care Act coverage availability.”
Health insurance in the ACA marketplace is open to anyone, but the plans are designed to provide low-cost or no-cost coverage based on patients’ income.
Advocates said many will find they can get coverage through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which in Arizona go by the names Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System and Kids Care, respectively. People who exceed the income limits for those programs may still be eligible for tax rebates to make the coverage affordable.
Interested people should go to Healthcare.gov for more information about their eligibility for coverage. In Arizona, a good place to start is CoverAZ.org, where people can get free advising on their eligibility and the best plan for them, said Marcus Johnson, director of state health policy and advocacy at Vitalyst Health Foundation.
“If you don’t have health insurance right now, if you recently lost your job during the pandemic or if you’ve never had health insurance, this is a great opportunity for people to shop for quality and affordable health insurance coverage,” Johnson said.
He said it is important to realize that whatever the Supreme Court rules in the ACA case, it will have “no bearing on this current open enrollment opportunity.”
“Now is the time to jump on board and see what you qualify for if you don’t have health insurance coverage,” Johnson said Monday.
» View complete article with graphs at link/PDF below:
Today, in accordance with the Executive Order signed by President Biden, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is announcing that the Special Enrollment Period (SEP) for the Health Insurance Marketplace® will officially be available to consumers in the 36 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform on Monday, February 15, and will continue through Saturday, May 15. At least 13 States plus the District of Columbia, which operate their own Marketplace platforms, have decided to offer a similar opportunity.
"President Biden was clear: we need to strengthen the Affordable Care Act and give more Americans access to health care, especially during this pandemic, which has further demonstrated the importance of having the right coverage. This Special Enrollment Period will give Americans who need affordable, quality health insurance an opportunity to get covered, and we encourage folks to head to HealthCare.gov starting on Monday to explore their options," said HHS Acting Secretary Norris Cochran.
For one-on-one virtual assistance, visit: http://coveraz.org/connector
PHOENIX ‒ Governor Doug Ducey and the Arizona Department of Health Services today announced a partnership with the University of Arizona and the Pima County Health Department to operate a state vaccination site on the university’s mall area on central Tucson campus.
“Our state vaccination sites at State Farm Stadium and Phoenix Municipal Stadium have been instrumental in Arizona’s work to vaccinate people quickly, efficiently and safely,” said Governor Ducey. “We’re thrilled to partner with the University of Arizona and the Pima County Health Department to open a site in Southern Arizona and rapidly expand vaccine distribution. The demand for vaccine doses is high, and Arizonans have made it clear they want it. We are working hard to secure more doses from the federal government and partner with private and public organizations to get the vaccine out and protect Arizonans. My thanks to President Bobby Robbins and everyone involved for their work to partner on this vaccination site.”
The state vaccination site will expand the current capacity and hours of operation at the existing university site, which has a proven record of success in vaccinating students, faculty and staff. The transition to a state site will add more appointments that will begin on Feb. 18. Registration for these appointments will open at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16, at podvaccine.azdhs.gov. Those without computer access or needing extra help registering can call 1-844-542-8201 for assistance. The partnership will also allow for expanded hours of operation, eventually operating 24/7 as more vaccine doses arrive in Arizona. At full capacity, the site can serve up to 6,000 people per day.
“Serving as a COVID-19 vaccine point of distribution (POD) and delivering more than 12,000 shots to local county members from first responders, K-12 and post K-12 educators and staff over the past two weeks has been a privilege for the University of Arizona, and we welcome the opportunity to provide the same service to Southern Arizona as a 24/7 vaccination site for the state,” said University of Arizona President Dr. Bobby Robbins. “Our POD has the capacity to deliver more vaccinations, and we look forward to working together to further meet the needs of Pima County and Arizonans. I am incredibly proud of our entire team of professionals and volunteers who have partnered closely with Pima County, established the university POD, and operated it so well.”
Today’s announcement of the vaccination site at the University of Arizona comes as the university and the state are experiencing a drop in COVID-19 cases.
“Demand for the vaccine remains high, and the state’s third vaccination site and first in Southern Arizona will help meet that demand,” said Arizona Department of Health Services Director Dr. Cara Christ. “We’ll have the ability to vaccinate more people each day at this site once we have more vaccine doses, and we are working with our federal partners to secure more supplies and rapidly expand vaccinations. We are looking forward to working with the University of Arizona and Pima County to get this site running and protect more Arizonans.”
The vaccination site at the University of Arizona will be the third state site, and the first in Pima County. On Jan. 11, Arizona opened its first state-run site at State Farm Stadium, where 178,084 vaccine doses have been administered. On Feb. 1, the state opened its vaccination site at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, where 14,946 vaccine doses have been administered. As of Tuesday, 954,290 vaccine doses have been administered across the state.
Information about all vaccination sites across Arizona can be found at azhealth.gov/findvaccine. Note: You can use the patient portal at podvaccine.azdhs.gov to make an appointment for a relative in a prioritized group.
PHOENIX — Arizona faith leaders gathered today to share a strong message with their congregations and the public: the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective, and getting vaccinated is the best way to end this pandemic. Alongside Dr. Cara Christ, Director of the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) and Maria Cristina Fuentes, Director of the Governor’s Office of Youth, Faith & Family (GOYFF), the following faith leaders highlighted the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine at First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix this morning.
Research suggests some groups are more hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and that targeted outreach to these groups is a key strategy to build confidence in vaccination efforts. Today’s event represents one step in Arizona’s work to ensure the COVID-19 vaccine is widely administered throughout our state. During the event, representatives from local religious communities - currently in prioritized groups - received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from Dr. Christ.
“Faith, and other community leaders, are critical and trusted voices in their communities and their partnership and support continues to have a significant impact as we work together to keep our communities safe and healthy,” said GOYFF Director Maria Cristina Fuentes. “We are grateful for faith leaders across the state who continue to raise awareness about the importance of everyone getting the COVID-19 vaccine.”
“The importance of religious leaders in speaking to the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines cannot be overstated,” said ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ. “As their turns come in vaccination priority, I hope more and more leaders share their experiences and encourage others to help develop the herd immunity we need to return to gathering safely in all settings.”
“As people of faith, we know caring for our neighbor is essential to both our spiritual and physical well-being and we are grateful for the development of revolutionary vaccine treatments that provide vital safety measures for ourselves and our loved ones,” said Reverend Katie Sexton, Executive Director of the Arizona Faith Network. “As faith leaders representing a variety of spiritual traditions across Arizona, we unite for the common good and believe that this common good is achieved by each person getting vaccinated when it is their time to do so.”
More than 736,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered so far to 601,630 Arizonans, including 121,397 who have received both doses. To date, 131,792 Arizonans have been vaccinated at the state-run vaccination sites since the opening of State Farm Stadium on Jan. 11 and Phoenix Municipal Stadium on Feb. 1. In less than three weeks, State Farm Stadium has administered over 25% of the total vaccine given in Maricopa County, which includes sites that have had vaccine since Dec. 14. Over 95% of those vaccinated at the site are Maricopa County residents.
Groups prioritized to date include: frontline healthcare workers, emergency services workers, and residents and staff at long-term care facilities (in Phase 1A); and protective services workers; K-12, university, and community college educators; childcare workers; and adults 65 and older (prioritized Phase 1B). Each county’s current vaccine phase is listed on the ADHS website, which is updated daily.
Those in groups prioritized for vaccination can register for available appointments at State Farm Stadium and multiple other vaccination sites at podvaccine.azdhs.gov. Information about all vaccination sites across Arizona can be found at azhealth.gov/findvaccine. Those without computer access or needing extra help registering can call 1-844-542-8201 to be connected with someone who can assist. Note: You can use the patient portal at podvaccine.azdhs.gov to make an appointment for a relative in a prioritized group, such as someone 65 and older.
To learn more about COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination, please visit azdhs.gov/COVID19Vaccines.
Arizona Republic | Stephanie Innes & Alison Steinbach | Feb 5, 2021
As the state of Arizona is quickly expanding its drive-thru COVID-19 vaccination sites in Maricopa County, some outlying counties are struggling with logistical challenges and an unreliable supply.
Nearly 150,800 vaccines have been administered at the two state-operated sites — State Farm Stadium in Glendale, which opened Jan. 11, and Phoenix Municipal Stadium, which just opened Feb. 1. That's in addition to the 344,149 vaccinations administered at Maricopa County sites.
At the same time, officials in several outlying counties are struggling with a low and inconsistent supply of vaccine. They are having trouble planning ahead.
In Cochise County this week, officials were able to offer just 100 first-dose appointments because of a lower-than-expected allocation.
Some Cochise County residents are driving to the state-operated sites in Phoenix and Glendale, but that option "does insert some real inequities in access," said Alicia Thompson, Cochise County's health and social services director.
Last week Thompson said she felt sick to her stomach when she learned that the county's entire allocation was 1,100 doses. She immediately set aside 1,000 for pre-booked second-dose appointments, which left just 100 first-dose appointments available.
"We just don't have the vaccine and that is why I've been contacting state legislators and other people because it's just very, very erratic," said Dr. Edward Miller, chief medical officer for the Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee, which is in Cochise County. "We get as high as 4,500 doses in one week and then this week we get 1,100, but 1,000 of those are designated as second doses ... So we can do 100 new vaccines this week and that's ridiculous."
Cochise County had administered 13,100 vaccines as of Friday and 1,664 people, about 1.3% of the county population, had been fully vaccinated with two doses. Statewide, about 2% of Arizona's population as of Friday had been fully immunized with the COVID-19 vaccine, state data showed.
Yavapai County also has had problems with supply and planning.
"Early on, we were told if we built this system, they (the Arizona Department of Health Services) would supply us with vaccine to hopefully push out vaccine in rural Arizona, not just in Maricopa and Pima counties," Yavapai County Community Health Services Director Leslie Horton said.
"It takes a lot of work on rural counties to pull together the resources, the staffing, the support, and we’ve done that. Now we just hope that they’ll come through on their part and provide the vaccine that we need to run these."
State Farm Stadium in Glendale, which opened Jan. 11, administered 8,200 COVID-19 vaccine doses on Thursday and the state-run vaccine site at Phoenix Municipal Stadium increased its daily doses on Friday to 2,000, up from the 500 per day it was doing when it opened Feb. 1.
Arizona Department of Health Services officials say they'd like to ramp up to 12,000 doses per day at both sites. Both health department director Dr. Cara Christ and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey say they have not forgotten about rural and outlying counties.
"We're focused on all of our counties. Maricopa may be getting more attention for the reason that it's the overwhelming majority population of our state. If you look at Maricopa and Pima you are talking about 85% of our state, so of course, we are going to focus our resources on that because that is where the people are," Ducey said Friday during a visit to State Farm Stadium.
State officials say supply is a problem across Arizona, and they are optimistic that the situation will improve. And erratic supply is an issue across the U.S., not just in Arizona, Ducey said.
"What we need is supply. We're going to open up a site in Pima County later in February," Ducey said. "But what's the consistent theme when you talk to anybody here ... we're going to say we need more inventory."
Christ said the state is looking at Coconino and Yuma counties to set up large vaccination sites similar to State Farm Stadium and Phoenix Municipal Stadium. They could possibly be state-run or a state-county hybrid, she said.
A site in Yuma would be welcome news for Phoenix resident Stephanie Parra, who was born and raised in Yuma. Her family still lives there, including her aunt, who is hospitalized and critically ill with COVID-19, and her parents, who have not received a vaccine yet.
"I know there is a great need. There is an entire state we have to worry about. But Yuma has been hit hard. I'm just frustrated. Why do we continue to forget about other parts of the state?" said Parra, a Phoenix Union High School District Board member who is the executive director of a Phoenix nonprofit organization.
"I want answers. They continue to say this (State Farm vaccination site) is a replicable, scalable model. I'd love a 24/7 site in Yuma. There's plenty of space — a lot of wide-open space. Yuma is not being given the attention it deserves. It is literally being devastated."
Yuma County has had the highest rate of COVID-19 infection in Arizona since the pandemic began, at 15,431 cases per 100,000 people as of Friday. The U.S. rate of COVID-19 infection as of Friday was 7,989 cases per 100,000 people.
Some counties say their week-to-week allocations from the state vary widely, making it difficult to plan in advance and schedule appointments because the supply is not consistent or reliable.
Yavapai County had administered more than 30,000 total doses, 90% of its supply, as of Friday, according to state data. It has one of the higher vaccination rates per 100,000 residents among Arizona counties.
But it's been a "turbulent process," Horton, the health director, said.
The county's first allocation from the state in late December was a "sizable" 8,200 doses, Horton said, allowing a quick start to vaccinating health care workers and other phase 1A individuals. But after that, weekly allocations have varied from 3,900 to 12,200 to 5,000 to 2,400, she said, some of which the county was able to bump up after requesting more from AZDHS.
"We’ve had this very unsteady and ever-changing supply of vaccine each week," she said. "What’s tough from my perspective is that instability of supply for planning purposes. To maintain these operations on a rural level, we need to know that we have a consistent supply coming, or at least have some sort of outlook on that supply so that we can plan for it.”
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ARIZONA CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING | by Terry Greene Sterling | February 5, 2021
PHOENIX – As the first wave of the pandemic picked up speed in Arizona in the spring of 2020, Juan and Rosa Aguirre heard that doctors in Mexico were prescribing a medicine thought to prevent and cure COVID-19.
Like countless other American citizens, the Aguirres, who were both 57 and lived in Nogales, Arizona, crossed into Mexico to obtain and fill prescriptions. They brought back antibiotics, steroids, and the alleged COVID-19 miracle cure—ivermectin, a medicine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to kill certain intestinal worms and head lice in humans.
The FDA has also approved the medicine as an antiparasitic for veterinary use. It comes in liquids, pastes and tablets for various animals, including heartworm chewables for dogs and apple-flavored dewormer paste for horses.
Medical experts contend there isn’t yet enough credible science to justify using ivermectin as an off-label prevention or treatment for COVID-19. And some doctors warn there are risks to taking the drug, which can cause dangerous side effects. They’re especially concerned about people self-medicating with ivermectin formulated for animals.
The FDA does not approve ivermectin formulated for either humans or animals to prevent or treat COVID-19. The National Institutes of Health in January issued guidelines that said, absent rigorous scientific studies, the NIH cannot “recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the use of COVID-19.”
Merck & Co. Inc., which manufactures ivermectin for humans under the brand name Stromectol, on Feb. 4 released a statement saying there is “no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies,” adding there is “a concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.”
The Arizona chapter of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons on Jan. 26 sent a letter to Gov. Doug Ducey asking him to make the controversial medicine “immediately available” to the state’s high risk populations, like prisoners and nursing home residents. Dr. Jane Orient, a Tucson physician and executive director of the AAPS, said she prescribes ivermectin to her patients for COVID-19.
The governor’s office, meanwhile, has passed the AAPS letter to the Arizona Department of Health Services for review, said C.J. Karamargin, the governor’s spokesman.
The state health department refers questions regarding guidance for COVID-19 treatments to federal health agencies, ADHS spokeswoman Holly Poynter wrote in an email. “Currently, there is not an emergency use authorization for ivermectin in the U.S. to prevent or treat coronavirus or COVID-19,” she wrote.
In a time of distrust of public health agencies and skepticism over government-approved vaccines, it’s not clear how many Arizonans are taking ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19. But heightened controversy over the medicine is sweeping through the state at the very time health officials struggle to get residents vaccinated, new and more potent strains of the virus loom and Arizona battles an unprecedented wave of the virus. The Arizona Department of Health Services reports the state is nearing 800,000 coronavirus infections since the pandemic began in 2020, with nearly 14,000 Arizonans dying from the virus as of early February 2021.
Juan Aguirre and his wife Rosa ended up contracting coronavirus in June 2020. They think they were infected by their asymptomatic grandson, and immediately began taking the medicines they’d obtained in Mexico, including the ivermectin. Aguirre suffered intense fatigue, chest congestion and muscle aches, but recovered after a week. Rosa had a high fever and a paralyzing headache for several days. She recovered less quickly, with lingering side effects that eventually went away.
Aguirre understands ivermectin might have had no impact on his recovery. It could have been any of the medicines he’d taken. Or none. Maybe the virus simply ran its course.
Still, he can’t shake the feeling the ivermectin helped. He had been so sick and desperate, Aguirre said, if he hadn’t purchased the ivermectin pills for humans, he probably would have resorted to taking the veterinary medicine.
The ivermectin controversy gained heft in Arizona when a Wisconsin pulmonologist, Pierre Kory, told a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in December 2020 that mountains of data from around the world support ivermectin’s “miraculous impact” as a preventative and healing agent of COVID-19.
“If you take it you will not get sick,” Kory said.
The message reached into conspiracy-theory-tinged corners of the internet, including the recently deplatformed social media site Parler.
Facebook has scrubbed some ivermectin posts and labeled others as misinformation. “Since COVID-19 was declared a global health emergency last January, we’ve removed misinformation about the pandemic that could contribute to imminent physical harm – including false claims about cures and treatments,” Kevin McAlister, a Facebook spokesman, wrote in an email.
Arizona Sen. Nancy Barto, a Republican from Phoenix who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, has posted positive information about ivermectin on Twitter. “Doctors shouldn’t have to wait for national experts to give them permission to save lives when they have good evidence to believe they can make a positive difference in the lives of their patients,” Barto wrote in an email.
It can be dangerous when those without medical backgrounds seek treatment information online, said Dr. Ross Goldberg, president of the Arizona Medical Association. He said people can hurt themselves when they self-prescribe.
There’s no telling how many Arizonans are taking the medicine now. Ivermectin for humans can be prescribed off-label by Arizona doctors like Jane Orient, or online in telehealth sites. The ivermectin veterinary medicine, which has not been tested on humans, can be purchased online or in feed stores.
“I understand that people are scared and people are anxious and COVID-19 fatigue is setting in, and I empathise with all that, but I am not a policy maker” said Dr. Aditya Shah, a physician and infectious disease expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Still, Shah said, most studies purporting that ivermectin is safe and effective in treating COVID-19 patients lack scientific rigor.
Even one dose of ivermectin can cause troubling side effects, Shah said. They can include rashes, joint pain, enlargement of lymph nodes, elevated heart rate, low blood pressure, nausea, and effects on liver and kidney function. A little less than 1 percent and as many as 10 percent (depending on the side effect) of people who take ivermectin experience side effects, he said.
Taking veterinary ivermectin, like horse dewormer, is “incredibly risky,” he added. And it sets patients up to have “hospital admission with life threatening side effects like liver failure, cardiovascular side effects and allergy issues.”
Ivermectin users also may be putting others at risk. If they aren’t following public health safety guidelines and take ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19, Shah said, they may wrongly assume they are protected from infection. If they are asymptomatic, they could infect others.
Dr. Daniel Derksen, a physician and the director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health at the University of Arizona, where he is also a professor, said he’s puzzled “that some individuals and a few health providers are skeptical about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines but are so gung-ho on ivermectin.”
“We saw this previously with hydroxychloroquine,” he said, “which has been strongly discouraged by the CDC [Centers for Disease Control] and the scientific community for COVID-19.”
Arizona’s Dr. Jane Orient also spoke before the senate committee in December 2020. In a phone call, she maintains ivermectin for humans is a safe, effective medicine that has been taken by millions of people. Studies around the world, she said, provide evidence of the medicine’s efficacy in treating COVID-19 patients.
“People are dying,” she said. “The drug has a positive effect. However, the public health authorities have been extremely negative.”
If people are taking horse dewormer paste to prevent or cure COVID-19, she said, it’s probably because they’ve been denied ivermectin prescriptions by their doctors. But she warns some animal dewormers are “poisonous to humans.”
“So if you’re going to resort to veterinary medicine make sure you know what’s in it,” Orient said.
As for Juan and Rosa Aguirre, they’re just counting the days until they can get vaccinated.
The Arizona Department of Health Services said Friday it is expanding its COVID-19 vaccination programs, adding distribution at pharmacies and at a second state-run site in the East Valley and broadening the number of people eligible for the vaccine. Dr. Daniel Derksen, director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health at the University of Arizona, said it is important to remember that the state is up against tough odds. "I think that the logistics of carrying out a vaccination program in a state with a population over 7 million… is challenging," Derksen said.
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By Haleigh Kochanski/Cronkite News | Jan. 15, 2021
WASHINGTON – The Arizona Department of Health Services said Friday it is expanding its COVID-19 vaccination programs, adding distribution at pharmacies and at a second state-run site in the East Valley and broadening the number of people eligible for the vaccine.
The expansion comes as the state has already administered well over 200,000 doses of vaccine, which Dr. Cara Christ, health department director, called “an exciting milestone for Arizona.”
It also comes during a week in which the state posted the highest rate of new infections in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with an average of more than 8,800 cases per day over the past seven days.
Christ outlined a broad expansion of the vaccination program, which had delivered 217,716 doses of the two approved COVID-19 vaccines, or about 36% of the more than 600,000 doses that have been delivered to the state.
“Any dose that remains in storage remains a challenge to be addressed, but as a state we are gaining momentum in protecting prioritized Arizonans from COVID-19,” Christ said in a prepared statementthis week.
Because of the limited amount of vaccine available so far, the state has prioritized availability, with health care workers and long-term care residents getting first crack at vaccinations, followed by teachers and first responders, then essential workers and adults with high-risk conditions. Eligible groups vary by county, some of which have already worked their way through the highest-priority residents.
Among the changes unveiled Friday by Christ is the addition of a new state-run vaccination site at Phoenix Municipal Stadium on Feb. 1, to complement a 24/7 site that has been operating since Tuesday at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale. More than 16,000 doses had been administered at the State Farm site as of Thursday.
Hours of operation at the Phoenix site have not been determined, but people will be able start making appointments there on Tuesday by visiting the patient portal on the Arizona Department of Health Services website.
Christ also said the state expects to add up to 100 pharmacies across the state that will be able to deliver the vaccine under the CDC’s Retail Pharmacy Program. That program could ultimately have as many as 800 pharmacies with COVID-19 vaccine available in the state.
The state is also relaxing restrictions on recipients in the Phase 1B priority list to include 65-year-olds, who can begin applying Tuesday for an appointment to get vaccinated. That category had previously been limited to those 75 and older, and lowering the age restriction could open vaccine availability to about 750,000 Arizonans.
The two currently approved vaccines – from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – require two doses, which must be administered within weeks of each other to be effective. As of this week, 21,612 Arizonans had received both doses, according to the state health department.
Despite the recent gains, vaccine delivery in the state has not been without its hitches, including some conflicts between state and county software to register for a vaccination.
“It’s very poor planning on the state health department’s part,” Will Humble, director of the Arizona Public Health Association, said of the software problems.
Although state officials have hailed operations at the State Farm Stadium site, Humble said the state needs to do a better job of spreading the wealth.
“The vaccine has not gotten out in significant numbers to other decentralized sites,” he said. “At this rate, it’s going to take a lot longer.”
Arizona has delivered more doses of the vaccine than most other states, ranking 18th-highest in terms of total doses delivered, according to a COVID-19 tracker maintained by Bloomberg.
But the state does not fare so well when it comes to the delivery of doses per 100,000 residents. The CDC said Arizona’s rate of 2,708 doses administered per 100,000 residents ranked 45th among states.
Christ on Friday dismissed the CDC numbers, saying they do not reflect the most current data from the state. She said the Bloomberg data is much more timely. But while Bloomberg reported Friday that Arizona had administered a higher rate of 3.19 doses per 100 residents – or 3,190 per 100,000 – that still tied the state for 40th in the nation.
But Dr. Daniel Derksen, director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health at the University of Arizona, said it is important to remember that the state is up against tough odds.
“I think that the logistics of carrying out a vaccination program in a state with a population over 7 million … is challenging,” Derksen said Friday.
“I think the Arizona Department of Health Services has worked very closely with the 15 county health departments around the state to try to do this in a transparent … manner. The demand is enormous … we’re hoping that the distribution of vaccines will accelerate as we move forward.”
