President Trump said Arizona is a COVID-19 response model for other states to follow during a meeting with Gov. Doug Ducey at the White House Wednesday.
Trump, along with Dr. Deborah Birx from the White House Coronavirus Task Force were pleased with Arizona's efforts to encourage face coverings and to close bars and nightclubs. Gov. Ducey noted how it impacted the positivity rate.
VIDEO: White House Meeting with President Trump and Gov. Ducey
"We saw our positivity get as high as 21. Upon reopening, we were part of the White House Slow the Spread. We had our positivity as low as four percent," Gov. Ducey said."Yesterday it was ten percent, the week before it was eleven. So it’s on a downward trajectory."
Arizona was the first state to use updated White House mitigation measures. Ducey and Trump also addressed the use of personal protective equipment, ventilators, testing supplies, and hospital staff.
Ducey expressed his appreciation to the task force for the additional personnel sent to Arizona to assist healthcare workers and providing the drug Remdesivir that has been dispersed throughout the state.
To date, Arizona and the federal government have partnered to: Stand up two surge testing sites in Maryvale and South Phoenix capable of conducting 60,000 tests. Additional test capacity is being sent throughout the state; Procure an additional Roche testing machine for Sonora Quest Laboratories to further bolster testing in the state; Deploy 170 surge medical personnel throughout the state; With the help of Senator Martha McSally, send 100 ventilators to Arizona for critical need areas, including tribal nations; Distribute more than 1.9 million N-95 masks, 12.1 million surgical masks, 5.8 million surgical gowns, and 380 million medical gloves to frontline medical workers; Coordinate the donation of nearly 2,000 cases of Remdesivir for Arizona health care providers; Allocate rapid point of care testing to more than 100 Arizona nursing homes, and more. - Office of Arizona Governor Doug Ducey
Trump called Arizona a model for "handling embers of the coronavirus".
As of Aug. 5, the percent of positive COVID-19 tests throughout the state of Arizona was at 12.6-percent. 1,218,017 tests have been administered in Arizona. The total number of cases was at 182,203 and there were 3,932 reported deaths related to the virus throughout the state.
