Health director Cara Christ acknowledged she effectively has scrapped the “substantial risk of spread” category from the benchmarks she adopted earlier this year. Now, no county can be classified as having more than a “moderate” risk. / Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer
By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services via Arizona Capitol Times
The state’s top health official admitted Friday she has altered the standards governing business operations during the COVID-19 outbreak to the point that none will ever have to close, no matter how serious the infection rate gets.
The reason, said Cara Christ, is that she does not believe businesses are a major source of the coronavirus infections that currently have nearly 4,000 people in Arizona hospitals and the number of intensive care beds available in the entire state down to 128, just 7% of capacity. She also said the implications of shutting down a business are greater than leaving them open.
And Christ does not foresee a situation where the spread of infection from business will get to a point where she would change her mind.
Christ acknowledged that she effectively has scrapped the “substantial risk of spread” category from the benchmarks she adopted earlier this year. Now, no county can be classified as having more than a “moderate” risk.
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What makes that significant is that, using Christ’s own standards, certain businesses, including bars, movie theaters and gyms are not allowed to operate when a county is placed in the substantial category. That is based on more than 100 cases per 100,000 residents, more than 10% of people testing coming back positive, and more than 10% of people showing up at hospitals having COVID-like illness.
