The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
In the year since the first COVID-19 case was detected in the United States, Arizonans have suffered some of the worst parts of the pandemic. While we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we need more relief for COVID-19 patients, frontline and essential health workers, and for our community to get back on track.
As a family physician in Tucson, I’ve seen Arizona’s COVID-19 crisis firsthand with patients passing away from COVID-19, and many more spending extended stays in the ICU . I’ve talked them through the fear of not knowing what would happen next — to themselves or to the ones they love.
One of my patients lost two generations of caretakers in his family to COVID-19 while in intensive care himself, making his access to care that much harder upon his recovery. Another patient, an older woman with no preexisting conditions, was in the ICU for several months. While she’s now out of intensive care, she’s one of the many facing significant long-term health problems, and her life has been forever changed.
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My patients, most of whom come from Latinx neighborhoods in South Tucson, are seeing much worse outcomes than other parts of the community: more COVID-19 cases, more hospitalizations, more deaths and fewer vaccines.
The situation didn’t have to be this terrible. Republican leaders like Gov. Doug Ducey could have followed their own guidelines and kept restrictions in place until the COVID-19 positivity rate dropped below 5%. He could have imposed restrictions again to prevent the spike we saw in hospitalizations and deaths over the holidays. And he could have done what all of our neighboring states did and impose a mask mandate. However, he failed to protect our community.
But now that we’re here, it’s up to our leaders in Congress to act. The COVID-19 relief package that’s currently being debated (and awaiting a vote) in the House will do a lot of good here in Arizona. Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema have already shown this year that they’re going to put Arizona priorities first, and this COVID-19 relief bill does exactly that.
From the perspective of a physician, we still need to detect and trace COVID-19 patients and the relief package provides critical funding for contact tracing, which helps find infected individuals, isolate them and reduce the spread of the disease when case numbers are rising rapidly. The package also provides billions of dollars to manufacture vaccines and protective equipment for frontline and essential workers who have not been able to work at home during the pandemic.
What’s more, the bill provides more support for lower-income Arizonans to obtain affordable health insurance coverage during an economic recession, where, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Arizona continues to face the highest unemployment rates seen since 2010 following the Great Recession.
We still don’t know what the long-term effects of COVID-19 will be and many people are suffering breathing and heart problems, among many other symptoms, months after being infected. And economic instability is proving devastating to many families as well. That’s why we need to make sure that Arizonans have affordable access to health care.
More relief for Arizonans will ensure that we can get to the other side with as little suffering as possible given the circumstances we are faced with. Arizonans are counting on our leaders to do what’s right and pass this critical package to save lives and mitigate the damage to our communities from COVID-19. While we may not be able to recover the 16,000 lives lost in our great state during this pandemic, our leaders can ensure that those remaining are better protected.
Dr. Cadey Harrel is a physician with Agave Family Medicine & Breastfeeding Support Center in Tucson. She is the founder and president of Agave Community Health & Wellness, a nonprofit whose chief aim is to provide community health education to improve health literacy and health equity.
