In just seven hours today, nearly 44,000 Arizonans have made appointments to be vaccinated at the state’s first 24/7 COVID-19 vaccination site at State Farm Stadium in Glendale. Those without computer access or needing extra help registering can call 1-844-542-8201, staffed through support from the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center at the University of Arizona, the Banner Health Poison and Drug Information Center, and Crisis Response Network’s 211 Arizona program.

The Bachelor of Science in Nursing Integrative Health celebrated its first graduation last month.

The Phoenix VA Health Care System Research Space will be an incubator for research, technology and clinical care on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

Gov. Doug Ducey in his State of the State address Monday urged everyone to get vaccinated against COVID-19, saying the more Arizonans who do so, the faster the state “can get on with life as it should be.” Dr. Joe Gerald, an associate professor of public health policy and management at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and member of the university’s COVID Modeling Team, thinks it will require more than that. “I don’t think we will be able to vaccinate our way out of this problem given how bad we’re doing right now.”

The Arizona Interscholastic Association's decision to move ahead with the high school winter sports season while requiring athletes to wear masks during competition was met with skepticsm by some health experts. "Even with the masks, it is a risk for athletes due to the fact they are not isolated,'' said Dr. Shad Marvasti, director of public health, prevention and health promotion with the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix.

Back in August, the University of Arizona launched an anonymous COVID-19 exposure notification app. The university believes that the app has helped reduce the average number of people infected on campus by at least 12%. "It gives people another edge. A way to really take charge of their own health, to have better awareness of their exposure," said Kacey Ernst, infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

In hard-hit Arizona, the disaster will worsen, according to Joe Gerald, associate professor at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. “We should expect to set new records for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths over the coming weeks. Policy action is urgently needed to mitigate the worst possible outcome,” Gerald wrote.

Pfizer and Moderna say their vaccines are about 95% effective at preventing people from getting sick with COVID symptoms. Preliminary evidence from Moderna showed that participants in a clinical trial who received the vaccine and were tested for COVID between their first and second doses had a roughly two-thirds reduction in asymptomatic infections. "That means there’s a substantial, substantial reduction in overall infections just from that first dose," said Deepta Bhattacharya, an associate professor of immunobiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson.