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Hospital crowding in Arizona reaches pandemic high

A hospital staff member attends to a patient in a COVID-19 intensive care unit on Jan. 6, 2021, at a hospital in Los Angeles.
AP, file
/
AFP via Getty Images
A hospital staff member attends to a patient in a COVID-19 intensive care unit on Jan. 6, 2021, at a hospital in Los Angeles.

State officials say the availability of hospital beds has sunk to the lowest level since the pandemic began.

The state's coronavirus dashboard reports that only 4% of inpatient beds and of intensive care unit beds statewide were available as of Wednesday.

The current hospital crowding is due not only to large numbers of COVID-19 patients, most of whom were unvaccinated, but also many non-virus patients needing treatment for other conditions.

The state's dashboard on Thursday also reported 3,663 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases and 75 more deaths.

Ryan Heinsius joined KNAU's newsroom as an executive producer in 2013 and became news director and managing editor in 2024. As a reporter, he has covered a broad range of stories from local, state and tribal politics to education, economy, energy and public lands issues, and frequently interviews internationally known and regional musicians. Ryan is an Edward R. Murrow Award winner and a Public Media Journalists Association Award winner, and a frequent contributor to NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and national newscast.