Arizona’s Rt — the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person — has been below 1.0 for more than a month, since June 24.
The Rt is the best measure for infection rates. Interestingly, Arizona’s Rt was already on the downward slope and dropping fast before Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey allowed city councils and county boards of supervisors around Arizona to impose mask mandates.
It was also well below 1.0 when Ducey decided to close bars because loads of young people partying at Scottsdale night clubs * made him terrified that he would lose his U.S. Senate bid in 2022 — I mean, care about Arizonans’ public health.
Let’s be honest, Ducey and most governors’ actions nationwide have little to nothing to do with public health and more to do with politics and economics. To wit, Arizona was one of the last states in the country to order a statewide stay-at-home suggestion. At the time of Ducey’s closure order, Arizona was averaging 200 cases per day.
Many public health experts said an arbitrary statewide closure was far in excess of what was really needed: Tight, localized quarantines and intensive contact tracing. Shutting down all economic activity in disease-free Kingman or Show Low because central Phoenix was a COVID-19 hotspot made no sense epidemiologically.
When Ducey ended his suggestion a month-and-a-half later, Arizona was averaging 350 cases. That number quickly ballooned because state officials did not track and prevent the spread during nor after the closure, they only slowed movement, briefly — like putting a glass over an anthill. Ducey’s closures devastated the state’s economy to a point where another stay-at-home order as cases average 3,000 a day is a political impossibility.
Likewise, nationally, the failure of Democratic and Republican governors to do anything other than close up shop torpedoed the economy, forced millions into unemployment and put hundreds of thousands of businesses at risk of bankruptcy.
Ducey’s decision to close bars, while letting restaurants with bars stay open doing the exact same business, is beyond stupid. Ducey forced tens of thousands of bartenders and bar workers into unemployment because he falsely claims one liquor license is 100% safe and the other kills people — all because some folks asked him embarrassing questions at a press conference *. Ducey does not care about you, Arizona workers, just his poll numbers.
The inability of Congress, the federal government and state leaders to effectively address Americans’ financial and health care needs means the virus will still spread, but slower, because we Americans are protecting ourselves without inept government “guidance.”
For instance, many state and local governments mandate masks, but provide no funding for effective ones, instead allowing homemade cloth masks. If hospital workers could stop the virus with mere cloth masks rather than N95 masks or respirators they must wear, they would do so in a heartbeat just to save the money. Like taking off your shoes at airport security, cloth masks are public safety theater, keeping Americans focused on who’s wearing them or not rather than our governments’ abject failures at actual disease control and preventing economic collapse.
Normally an epidemic or pandemic is slowed and then either defeated or controlled by herd immunity, meaning the majority of the population has become immune to a disease because a large majority of the population, i.e. herd, has been infected, developed antibodies and can’t be infected again, such as chicken pox, or because the herd has been immunized, such as with measles.
The trouble with developing herd immunity in the COVID-19 outbreak is that with social distancing and other measures limiting contact, the infection rate has slowed to a point where it will take more than a decade to reach the 70% to 80% of the population having developed antibodies needed for true herd immunity.
So scientists are working on vaccines and governments are spooling up production facilities with billions of dollars so that when a vaccine is proven effective and as relatively safe as any vaccine can be, that these labs can begin mass production.
When a vaccine arrives, will we get it? Those who believe in the power of modern medicine to fight diseases, certainly. People who fear dying or suffering from a COVID-19 infection? Definitely. Those who have weathered this pandemic with blasé indifference? Sure, whatever. Folks who think vaccines are a government ploy to inject us with microchips or mind control or that vaccines cause autism — first off, stop believing that nonsense on your aunt’s Facebook page — but no, they won’t. And those who adamantly oppose masks or think COVID-19 is a conspiracy by Bill Gates or other bogeymen? Heck no.
Arizona’s infection rates have dropped because we are spending less time in stores, less time around each other and being safer overall. It’s not because of government assistance nor guidance. We can only hope to slow the spread and find a vaccine before government officials destroy our livelihoods with their “help.”
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
* Specifically a story titled “Video showing packed bars, clubs in Old Town Scottsdale draws concern” was posted to AZFamily.com on Jun 17. The 1-minute 54-second video aired on ABC 15 in the Phoenix area, prompting questions by reporters at Ducey’s subsequent press conference, which led to the bar closure order.
