COVID-19 protocols ‘critical to being safe’
NAH’s Flo Spyrow says spike in positive tests not evident in hospital admissions

Florence L. Spyrow

Florence L. Spyrow

COTTONWOOD — Arizona needed 64 days to record its first 1,000 COVID-19 cases. The first two days of June saw 2,100 new COVID-19 cases in Arizona.

Although numbers do not lie, the chief executive officer of Northern Arizona Healthcare said Thursday that the “most critical number is the number of patients ending up in the hospital.”

In conversations she’s had with hospital leaders across the state, NAH CEO Flo Spyrow said the recent spike in COVID-19 cases “doesn’t correlate with the severity rate of those needing hospital care.”

Despite the high statewide numbers, Spyrow said she “would never guess or tell the governor what to do.”

“I don’t question Gov. Ducey’s decision,” she said. “There are a number of factors that create healthy communities. One is a robust economy. Stay-at-home orders dramatically affected that. We need vibrant, robust economies to help our communities.”

Spyrow added that reinforcing social distancing and other protocols is “critical to being safe.”

Should businesses have the right to say ‘no mask, no service’? Spyrow said “absolutely.”

As of Thursday, June 4, Verde Valley Medical Center had 47 patients, with no patients positive for COVID-19 and eight waiting for their test results, according to Ron Haase, chief administrative officer for Verde Valley Medical Center.

“We’ve held fairly steady the past several weeks,” Haase said. “But we’re holding our breath, as the rest of the nation is.”

Not only is VVMC “a bit below where we might normally be” as far as patients, its COVID-19 positive patients since March 1 has represented a “very, very low number,” Haase said.

-- Follow Bill Helm on Twitter @AZShutterbug42


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