13 May 2021

Increase in Arizona COVID Cases from Border Migration Crisis Stabilizing

We're going to tell a story with a single chart today. We've compared Arizona's first wave trough with its second wave trough in the following chart, where we've estimated the number of excess COVID cases Arizona has counted as a result of the Biden-Harris administration's border migration crisis. Click the image for a larger version.

Comparing Arizona's First and Second Wave COVID Troughs, Number of Positive Test Results by Date of Sample Collection

The good news shown in the chart is that the number of new COVID cases in Arizona appears to be stabilizing, ending what had been a slowly rising trend.

For more background on the border migration crisis' effect on COVID in Arizona, follow the most recent links in the series listed below!

As for the border migration crisis itself, the Biden-Harris administration has reversed itself by resuming construction of a border wall project in Texas. At this time, there's no indication of a similar restart of border wall construction projects in Arizona.

Previously on Political Calculations

Here is our previous coverage of Arizona's experience with the coronavirus pandemic, presented in reverse chronological order.

References

We've continued following Arizona's experience during the coronavirus pandemic because the state's Department of Health Services makes detailed, high quality time series data available, which makes it easy to apply the back calculation method to identify the timing and events that caused changes in the state's COVID-19 trends. This section links that that resource and many of the others we've found useful throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Arizona Department of Health Services. COVID-19 Data Dashboard: Vaccine Administration. [Online Database]. Accessed 25 April 2021.

Stephen A. Lauer, Kyra H. Grantz, Qifang Bi, Forrest K. Jones, Qulu Zheng, Hannah R. Meredith, Andrew S. Azman, Nicholas G. Reich, Justin Lessler. The Incubation Period of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) From Publicly Reported Confirmed Cases: Estimation and Application. Annals of Internal Medicine, 5 May 2020. https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-0504.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios. [PDF Document]. Updated 10 September 2020.

More or Less: Behind the Stats. Ethnic minority deaths, climate change and lockdown. Interview with Kit Yates discussing back calculation. BBC Radio 4. [Podcast: 8:18 to 14:07]. 29 April 2020.