On January 15, 2021, the New York Times reported that Arizona had the highest 7-day daily average per capita of deaths and new cases of the new coronavirus, covid-19.[1] On one day, Arizona had 11,324 new cases.[2] “We’re the hottest spot in the U.S. and among the hottest spots in the entire world,” said Keith Frey, the chief medical officer for Dignity Health’s Arizona division.[3] “If we don’t slow this down over the course of the next days and weeks, then we will be fully into that crisis zone,” he added.[4] It would be a crisis of the state’s own making, and thus preventable but for the local culture at least in the Phoenix metro area. In other words, the crisis did not happen to Arizona; rather, the crisis was in large part homemade, and can thus be used as a window into a dysfunctional culture in the United States.
The full essay is at "Dysfunctional Arizona."
1. Jordan Allen et al, “Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count,” The New York Times, January 15, 2021.
2. Alicia Caldwell and Ian Lovett, “Arizona Is America’s Covid-19 Hot Spot and on the Brink of Crisis,” The Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2021.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.