Flagstaff Mayor Paul Deasy tweeted the “WTF” acronym on Saturday to inform visitors they needed to mask up. No expletives were used. Rather, the mayor explained the acronym stood for “Welcome To Flagstaff” and encouraged people to “Wear The Face mask.”
Though face masks are still required in public transportation and government buildings, even for the fully vaccinated, the citywide mandate ended late May. The public mask mandate was put in place nearly a year prior in June.
AZ Free News inquired with Deasy’s office why the mayor chose to use the controversial acronym to relay COVID-19 safety guidance. They didn’t respond by press time.
This isn’t Deasy’s first foray into posts of this caliber concerning COVID-19. In July, the mayor tweeted what appeared to be a sexual innuendo about the potential connection between COVID-19 infection and lasting erectile dysfunction.
“Don’t let Covid get you down. Get vaccinated!” wrote the mayor.
Recently, Deasy’s other social media remarks have caused issues within city governance.
Last month, the Flagstaff City Council expressed their displeasure with Deasy’s public criticisms of them. Deasy had given the council members a 24-hour notice for a special meeting. However, four council members were representing Flagstaff at the League of Cities and Towns Conference in Phoenix and were unable to attend.
Deasy characterized the council members’ absence as willful negligence and a flippant disregard for responsibility and constituents, though the Phoenix conference is an annual affair planned on months in advance.
“Vice Mayor & Councilmembers Salas, Sweet, & Aslan were no-shows to our meeting on Covid wastewater early warning system, so meeting cancelled. Public health & safety of teachers & children should be top priority. Unfortunately, some electeds can’t bother to show up for discussion,” wrote Deasy.
Vice Mayor & Councilmembers Salas, Sweet, & Aslan were no-shows to our meeting on Covid wastewater early warning system, so meeting cancelled. Public health & safety of teachers & children should be top priority. Unfortunately, some electeds can’t bother to show up for discussion
Councilman Austin Aslan responded to Deasy with criticism over the mayor’s leadership skills and professionalism.
I can’t just sit on this and not shine a light on it. Here is the Flagstaff mayor on Instagram, repeating, on yet another platform, his baseless smears of fellow Councilmembers. Seriously, I implore you, who does this when they’re in a leadership role? This defamation is so embarrassing it makes me sick to my stomach. I have been one of Flagstaff’s strongest advocates for Covid restrictions, spanning two Councils. How does this mayor sleep at night while deliberately throwing my irrefutable record on pandemic mitigation under the bus? This is so disingenuous. To me, it feels insidious. I was literally driving through a remote portion of I-17 at 6pm on Tuesday. Shame on Paul for blindly insinuating I was at a dinner party. Also: I strongly suspect that both Councilmembers Shimoni and McCarthy are furious that they’re being used as bricks in the mayor’s toxic game, but that’s for them to confirm. Paul Deasy already admitted once this year that he ‘did not befit the honor of his position’ while unfairly impugning a local non-profit director. He truly ought to resign over this. But I’ll leave it there. You be the judge. If you’re troubled too, please share this. These attacks cannot continue in the shadows.
Deasy never issued a statement to responses from council members.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Following Governor Doug Ducey’s announcement last week that the Biden Administration failed to award bids for forest and wildfire management, the Arizona House announced Monday a new ad hoc committee to undertake that task themselves. Members of the committee include State Representatives Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), Tim Dunn (R-Yuma), Andres Cano (D-Tucson), and Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (D-Tucson), with House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R-Mesa) serving as the chairman.
Ducey’s statement came a day after the Biden Administration suddenly canceled solicitations for the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI). The 4FRI aimed to restore fire-adaptive ecosystems in the Southwestern Region. The Biden Administration decided that the requirement for the restoration objectives weren’t “reasonably aligned to industry needs.”
In response, Ducey said that the Biden Administration’s decision put Arizonans at risk.
“The federal government’s lack of action is frustrating. The federal mismanagement of our forests poses an ongoing risk,” stated Ducey. “But Arizonans should know that we remain proactive in our pursuit of forest health and disaster prevention. We will continue to work with federal and community partners and safety personnel to protect people, pets and property.”
With this new ad hoc committee, the state government will be able to take action where the federal government won’t at present.
Wildfires have long been a plague for the Grand Canyon State. Arizona contains the key elements for one of these natural disasters to begin: high temperatures and drought that dry out vegetation, combined with low humidity and high winds. With those conditions in place, many things can ignite a wildfire: the sun’s heat, lightning strikes, discarded cigarettes or matches, unattended campfires, or fireworks, for example.
The worst wildfire in recent memory was the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, which claimed the lives of 19 firefighters. The high winds caused the fire to shift suddenly, intensifying the fire and cutting off the firefighters’ only escape route.
The tragedy of those Granite Mountain Hotshot firefighters inspired “Hotshots 19,” an annual memorial workout completed nationwide in May consisting of 6 rounds of 30 air squats, 19 power cleans at either 135 pounds for men or 95 pounds for women, 7 strict pull-ups, and a 400 meter run. The firefighters were known as “hotshots” because they were part of a “hotshot crew”: a team of 20 individuals assigned to handle the hottest part of wildfires.
This year, wildfires have occurred near the Juniper Mountains, the Verde River, and the Bradshaw Mountains in Yavapai County (Rock Butte Fires, Rafael Fire, and Tiger Fire); the Gila River and Pinal Mountains in Graham County (Bottom Fire and Pinnacle Fire, respectively); the Santa Rita Mountains in Pima County (Heavy Fire); and the southern border in Pima County (Alamo Fire).
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Last Friday, Maricopa County settled with the State Senate on both side’s election demands, with the Senate apparently compromising on nothing per the agreement. The county will hand over the remaining election materials subpoenaed by the Senate: routers, splunk logs, and digital images of ballot envelopes. They will also drop their demand that the legislature pay $2.8 million to replace the voting machines. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs – who told the county that she would likely decertify any election results that come from the audited machines – has yet to issue a statement on the settlement.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors convened on Friday to discuss this settlement. They ultimately decided that the election routers, splunk logs, and ballot envelopes weren’t worth $700 million in lost funds. In fact, the board decided securing those funds was worth an additional expenditure. The county will pay for a “Special Master”: an official to oversee acquisition of the routers and splunk logs. Former Republican Congressman John Shadegg will serve that role.
Senate Republicans tweeted the news in a statement from President Karen Fann (R-Prescott). Fann clarified that experts were sure that the audited election equipment wasn’t compromised, as the county had claimed.
“The Senate will finally get the answers to questions asked for in the subpoenas issued to the County months ago,” stated Fann. “I look forward to getting our final questions answered and wrapping up the review of the election in Maricopa County.”
Shortly after, Fann released a more personalized statement of her own. She responded to critics and skeptics with clarification that the Senate hadn’t lost out on anything they were desiring.
“HUGE win for the Az Senate today! Maricopa settlement gives us all the data needed to complete the review of the routers & splunk log to the most comprehensive election audit in history,” stated Fann. “We got everything we need and more. Maricopa County goes home with its tail between its legs.”
Maricopa County officials spun a different narrative in their announcement of the settlement. The county neglected to clarify that they were still turning over the subpoenaed election materials to the Senate for inspection. Instead, they emphasized that the auditing company, Cyber Ninjas, wouldn’t be given access to those materials.
“NEW: Board votes to approve an agreement with the AZ Senate that keeps county routers & other sensitive materials out of the hands of Cyber Ninjas. The agreement also protects taxpayers and ends a legal dispute over the Senate’s ongoing election review,” stated the county. “Per Chairman @jacksellers: ‘The Cyber Ninjas will never be able to touch the routers or access our data. An independent third party can confirm what we’ve always said: the election equipment was not connected to the internet and no vote switching occurred. And our residents, law enforcement, and courts can all rest assured that their data and equipment are protected.’ The agreement with the Senate comes with a provision that the Senate President write a letter to the Attorney General stating the County has now fully complied with the Senate’s outstanding subpoenas and that further action is not warranted.”
Cyber Ninjas’s report on Maricopa County’s 2020 election will be released on Friday. Since Cyber Ninjas isn’t privy to the election materials obtained from the Maricopa County-Senate settlement, information from those materials won’t be included.
Last month, Hobbs published a full report of the audit, asserting that Cyber Ninjas’ work was more of a partisan review than a credible audit.
If COVID-19 cases are trending down in 14 of Arizona’s 15 counties, as one public health doctor says, then why are some many hospitals in the state saying they don’t have room treat patients?
According to Dr. Joe K. Gerald, an associate professor at the University of Arizona’s Zuckerman College of Public Health, all but one county in Arizona reported lower numbers last week. The outlier was Greenlee County, which is “experiencing worsening outbreaks” and is nearing its all-time pandemic high infection rate, Gerald wrote for the Arizona Public Health Association.
But what cannot be reflect a positive COVID-19 test result (referred to as a case even if asymptomatic) or vaccination rates is what percent of people actually end up in the hospital.
According to Gerald, 2,050 of Arizona’s 8,747 general ward beds (23 percent) were assigned to COVID-19 patients as of Sept. 15, with another 695 beds available statewide for COVID-19 use. At the same time, 565 of Arizona’s 1,743 ICU beds (32 percent) were occupied by COVID-19 patients, with only 143 additional ICU beds available across the state for COVID-19 patients.
But even if infection rates continue to fall in upcoming weeks, Gerald believes COVID-19 related hospitalization occupancy by a percent of available beds will remain high “for several more weeks.” He also notes excess capacity is nearly as low now as it was at the peak of the winter 2020 / 2021 surge when 577 COVID-19 patients were admitted to hospitals statewide.
The problem is that simply having an open bed in a room is not what qualifies as an available bed. The statistic means not only the bed, but also the appropriate equipment and staffing available to treat a COVID-19 patient.
A hospital administrator in southern Arizona told AZ Free News there have already been issues at smaller hospitals in ensuring available beds due to delays with replacing equipment. Conditions worsened when the Delta Variant uptick began in Arizona in July.
But the main issue, the administrator said, is that Arizona’s larger hospital chains, including Banner, HonorHealth, and Mayo Clinic, are losing experienced medical staff due to mandated proof of vaccination from all staff regardless of position.
Those hospitals -mostly in Maricopa and Pima counties- often accept patients from smaller counties, whether it be COVID-19 patients or trauma patients. However, as many doctors and patients are learning, those options are drying up across the state.
Thousands of health professionals across Arizona are pushing back on the requirement, with many leaving voluntarily instead of waiting to be fired. The result is staffing shortages which in turn impacts the number of available beds not only to treat COVID-19 patients but also those in need of other emergency treatment and even non-emergency procedures.
Gerald, in his article for Arizona Public Health Association, noted that with hospitalizations already at above seasonal levels, hospital administrators need to be prepared for COVID-19 related occupancy to exceed 20 percent of all general ward beds and 25 percent of ICU beds in the near future..
He also noted that Arizona’s fatality rate due to COVID-19 has been staying below 300 a week since February 2021 after hitting an all-time weekly high of nearly 1,100 deaths the month before. That compares to the worse week last year when roughly 600 deaths were recorded as COVID-19 related during one week in mid-July 2020.
“It now appears unlikely that Arizona will reach 300 deaths per week. Instead, the peak should occur at 200 deaths or a bit more per week,” Gerald wrote.
Remdesivir: the only FDA-approved treatment for COVID-19. It’s an antiviral drug that the federal government touts as an effective and safe treatment for COVID-19 hospitalizations. However, the opposite may be proving true.
Despite governmental reassurances of remdesivir’s safety and efficacy, there continue to be reports and studies that indicate otherwise.
Remdesivir’s origins:
The FDA granted full approval to remdesivir – or, Veklury – on October 22, 2020. It wasn’t a new drug developed for this virus. Remdesivir was developed years earlier in 2009 by Gilead Sciences to fight hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus. At that point, remdesivir was known as Adenine C-Nucleoside, or GS-5734.
In 2014, remdesivir was given another opportunity to be deployed with the 2013 to 2016 West African Ebola virus. They received backing from the U.S. government for this effort. Before remdesivir could be implemented widely, the Ebola outbreak had subsided. Then the drug received another opportunity to treat Ebola in a 2018 outbreak. However, remdesivir failed to improve survival rates. Instead, a different treatment with a familiar name increased survival rates – monoclonal antibody therapies.
Over the past four years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Gilead Sciences just under $6 million in research grants for remdesivir. These grants were for researching its efficacy against MERS-CoV and any emerging coronaviruses.
It was after remdesivir’s failure to make a significant impact in the last Ebola outbreak in 2018 that Gilead Sciences looked to repurpose the drug. When the COVID-19 outbreak occurred, that became another opportunity for the experimental antiviral drug.
Since remdesivir had around a decade of research and trials behind it, Gilead Sciences was able to quickly submit its preclinical data and initiate further clinical trials to obtain an emergency use authorization (EUA) in May of 2020.
With nearly a year of full FDA approval, there exists more data and research on remdesivir.
More FAERS deaths than hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin:
The FDA Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS) reports that remdesivir has caused nearly 1,500 deaths from 2020 to present. A total of nearly 6,000 cases, over 4,500 of them considered “serious.”
By comparison, hydroxychloroquine has just over 1,100 deaths, with over 14,150 cases from 2020 to present; just over 13,500 cases were considered serious.
Ivermectin had the lowest FAERS reports: under 30 deaths last year and this year, with nearly 430 cases and under 200 of those considered serious.
FAERS only has data for remdesivir from 2020 to 2021, when it was first used as a therapeutic treatment for COVID-19. In contrast, FAERS has tracked hydroxychloroquine for 35 years, and ivermectin 25 years – neither are FDA-approved as a treatment for COVID-19.
The current narrative around ivermectin paints the antiviral as ineffective at best and deadly at worst (in the case of overdosing or taking the version designed as a horse dewormer). Thursday, Banner Hospital told news outlets that they were experiencing heightened cases of ivermectin poisoning. They reiterated that ivermectin wasn’t FDA-approved and shouldn’t be used to treat COVID-19.
“Ivermectin is not an FDA-approved treatment for COVID. Clinical trials are ongoing to assess ivermectin for COVID, but no clear findings have been released that confirm this drug as a safe or effective form of treatment for COVID. For this reason, it is not currently a drug that Banner hospitals or providers will prescribe,” stated Banner Hospital.
Yet, doctors are still prescribing ivermectin – along with other non-FDA-approved treatments like hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and monoclonal antibodies.
A higher cost and financial incentive:
Whereas both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are available in generic brands over the counter for low prices (as low as under $20 for the former and under $30 for the latter, according to the latest deals we could find around press time), remdesivir doesn’t have a generic alternative and is only available to hospitalized patients.
Remdesivir costs $520 a vial, or $3,120 for a patient with private health insurance undergoing the typical six-vial treatment course. For 2020, Gilead Science reported around $24.35 billion in sales.
By comparison, the EUA-only monoclonal antibodies from Regeneron (REGEN-COV, a combination of casirivimab and imdevimab) cost less: around $2,100 per dose. The federal government covers that cost. Any costs to the patient would have to do with administration of the treatment; those costs can vary per health insurance.
Hospitals have a financial incentive if they administer remdesivir. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) gives hospitals a New COVID-19 Treatments Add-On Payment (NCTAP), a 20 percent bonus for any remdesivir treatments.
Mixed results on efficacy and safety:
Research on remdesivir’s efficacy and safety have arrived at mixed conclusions.
Some studies cast doubt on its safety, citing findings of adverse effects including respiratory and organ failure, low potassium, low red blood and platelet cell counts, gastrointestinal distress, low blood pressure, nausea, and vomiting. A pervasive concern has focused on remdesivir’s connection to kidney failure in COVID-19 patients.
Johns Hopkins Medicine speculated last May that COVID-19 itself might be the culprit for kidney damage or failure. That was published several weeks after remdesivir received its emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA.
In July, a study found that veterans who received remdesivir experienced longer hospital stays than those who didn’t. They also found no difference in mortality rates between those who received remdesivir and those who didn’t.
Some research abroad has concurred with these findings. A German study released last month stated that they weren’t confident in remdesivir’s ability to reduce or prevent intubation or mortalities.
In February and April studies, French researchers reported a correlation between remdesivir and kidney failure. A January review of remdesivir published by the American Society of Nephrology suggested that remdesivir not be administered to COVID-19 patients due to the kidney failure that occurred in animal testing.
And then there are the anecdotal reports of remdesivir’s impact. State Senator Kelly Townsend (R-Mesa), reported that two law enforcement officers were denied their choice of treatment – either ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine – and were instead given remdesivir. Shortly after, Townsend said that the two officers died due to kidney failure.
“I have asked @dougducey’s office for consideration re people’s right to try Ivermectin or HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] but are being denied while in hospital. A healthy border patrol agent just died who was denied access to potentially life-saving treatment & now a retired female Tucson police officer. She is on a ventilator,” wrote Townsend. “Both given Remdisivir, both have/had kidney failure. This denial of meds is criminal.”
Other studies say that the remdesivir may be more helpful than harmful, or that its benefits outweigh the risks.
Last October, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) launched an investigation into the potential link between remdesivir and acute kidney failure. After several months of research, they concluded that remdesivir wasn’t connected to kidney failure in COVID-19 patients.
The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Network sought to reconcile the conflicting reports of remdesivir being both useful and ineffective, in a report issued in July. They determined that those receiving remdesivir in real-world hospital settings were more likely to be more severely ill than those who received it in a randomized, controlled hospital study.
Remdesivir’s drug information sheet doesn’t mention kidney damage or failure as one of the adverse reactions discovered in their trials.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
