As the temperature begins to dip, along with it comes many questions as to what impact weather may have on COVID-19.
During his semi-monthly update to the Sedona City Council on Tuesday, Oct. 27, Sedona City Manager Justin Clifton said in some areas of the pandemic things are improving while in other areas not so much.
The number of daily reported cases is on the rise, he said. Even though it’s far less than it was during June and July, it’s still cause for concern.
“For a while we saw 600 or 700 cases a day [statewide] and now we’re seeing 800, 900 or over 1,000 for the first time in a couple of months,” Clifton said. “This is still what you’d describe as a slower upward trend than those coming from other places in the world or country but nevertheless it does reflect worsening conditions. The big question will be, where does the trend go from here?”
As of Thursday, Oct. 29, there have been 242,480 positive COVID-19 cases in Arizona total. In Yavapai County there have been 2,961 cases, while Coconino County has had 5,243. In the Sedona area that number was at 168 cases. The positivity rate in Arizona has bumped up to 6% after remaining at 4% from mid-August through early October.
Statewide, 5,918 people have died as a result of the novel coronavirus. According to a chart shown by Clifton, the number of reported deaths has seen a slight decline in recent weeks.
In terms of business restrictions, there are still some in place that fall into the moderate category. Clifton said it doesn’t appear that as a state it will be moving into the minimal restriction category any time soon nor will Arizona be falling back into the substantial restrictive category as well.
Regarding businesses, sales tax continues to hold steady. Over the past four weeks, hotel occupancy has been at 82%, which is just 2% lower than this time last year. However, average daily room rates are up 7% over the last month compared to this time in 2019.
Winter advertising by the Sedona Chamber of Commerce is planned to resume. But if there’s another spike in cases, advertising to Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix will be paused, Clifton said.
Sales tax numbers lag a couple months. While July was down, August has been much better than the city expected, Clifton said. He anticipates that September and October figures will also be higher than expected. Because of this, the city is filling vacancies that have gone unfilled for upwards of six months.
“Looking forward, we’re cautiously optimistic that if something substantial doesn’t change, we’ll continue on the track we’re on,” he said.
Mayor Sandy Moriarty noted that while some statistics are encouraging, there are still many states seeing a rise in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
“It’s definitely not over — that’s my message,” she said.
