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.

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.”

Naomi Bishop, an associate librarian, at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, is one of this year’s I Love My Librarian Award winners, presented by the American Library Association and sponsored by Carnegie Corporation of New York. Each honoree receives $7,500, and a $750 donation to their library. The winners are nominated by library patrons for "expertise, dedication and profound impact" on their communities. Bishop was one of 10 winners for being "a champion for social justice."

Experts say getting infected with COVID-19 a second time is rare, but it can happen. "Currently, only a small number of cases have been shown convincingly to be reinfection," said Dr. Elizabeth Connick, chief of the infectious diseases division at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson. "I suspect that we're going to learn that reinfection occurs a lot more frequently."

In hard-hit Arizona, the crisis will get worse, said Dr. Joe K. Gerald, associate professor of public health policy and management 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.

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.

Scarring of lungs, shortness of breath, lack of smell and inflammation of the heart, are but some of the ailments COVID-19 leaves in patients long after the acute illness has passed. “We’ve also seen these long-term COVID symptoms with people who have been very mildly symptomatic and young and otherwise healthy. So, we don’t completely understand it,” said Dr. Shad Marvasti, from the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix.

California had the worst coronavirus infection rate in the nation last week. Now, Arizona has claimed that grim distinction, with one university health expert calling it “the hot spot of the world.” Joe Gerald, a professor of public health policy and management at the University of Arizona, said the state pushed down the curve over the summer with restrictions on businesses including restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters and water parks.