Cases of the novel coronavirus in the Verde Valley remain low, with just 11 confirmed in Cottonwood, 10 in Sedona and five in Camp Verde and five in other places throughout the valley, as of Monday, May 4. This represents an increase of just five cases, up from 26 cases two weeks ago.
On the other side of Mingus Mountain, the Prescott area has seen a slightly higher increase in recent days, going from 50 cases on April 26 to 97 a week later. The total number of cases increased by 47% from April 26 to May 3, a significant jump from the 5.6% increase from April 19 to April 26.
On Wednesday, April 29, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey extended the state’s stay-at-home order to May 15, while noting that some businesses could reopen starting May 4. Elective surgeries at hospitals, which were put on hold during the crisis to allow hospitals to maximize their capacity for COVID- 19 patients in the case of an outbreak, were allowed to resume starting May 1.
On a press call with reporters on April 30, administrators at Northern Arizona Healthcare said that while Verde Valley Medical Center has for the most part ended up having a relatively easy time with the pandemic, the hospital would not be ready to bring back elective surgeries quite yet.
“We’re certainly in the planning phase for that,” Josh Tinkle, Flagstaff Medical Center chief administrative officer, said in the press call. “We’re planning for the 10th of May, going to six [hospital beds used for surgeries] and then on June 1 increasing that from six to nine.”
Mougin said that the hospital hopes to be operating back at normal capacity for elective surgeries by July. Like most hospitals, VVMC depends heavily on elective surgeries to collect revenues. Administrators said that the drop in surgeries has meant that NAZ is not making enough revenues to pay for operating costs during the months of the crisis.
Administrators praised the Verde Valley for having flattened the curve, but noted that without the kind of full-scale contact tracing that epidemiologists recommend — testing enough people to find cases that are currently missing and testing all people who had interacted with those who test positive in order to track and halt the spread of the virus — even areas that have had notable success could have a difficult time reopening their hospitals safely.
“I don’t know anywhere in Arizona that that is going on in any substantive manner, and it’s one of the things that we are encouraging the governor and the state to look at it and get processes in place both in the Phoenix community and other communities throughout Arizona to be able to implement this prior to reopening,” NAZ President and CEO Flo Spyrow said.
