by Corinne Murdock | Sep 20, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
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.”
https://twitter.com/AZSenateGOP/status/1439035033428185089
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.
Read the settlement here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Terri Jo Neff | Sep 20, 2021 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
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.
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 19, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
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.
https://www.facebook.com/BannerHealth/posts/10159509573215682
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.”
https://twitter.com/AZKellyT/status/1434249117874622465
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.
by Terri Jo Neff | Sep 19, 2021 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
Corporate executive Jim Lamon’s campaign for U.S. Senate received endorsements last week from the National Border Patrol Council and the Arizona Police Association, shocking many in the Republican Party who assumed Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich was a shoo-in for the groups’ backing.
Lamon, the founder of Fortune 550 utility company DEPCOM Power, is among four prime candidates seeking the Republican nomination on Aug. 2, 2022 –and with it the chance to unseat Sen. Mark Kelly. The others are Brnovich, recently retired Arizona Adjutant General Michael “Mick” McGuire, and political newcomer Blake Masters, who serves as president of the Thiel Foundation.
There were also endorsements announced last week in the Arizona gubernatorial race, where businessman Steven Gaynor, former state lawmaker Matt Salmon, Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson, and current State Treasurer Kimberly Yee are hoping Republican voters will start to look past the local celebrity status of television news personality Kari Lake, the current front runner.
The endorsements came in the form of former governors Jan Brewer and Fife Symington joining Taylor Robson as co-chairs of her campaign. Their support comes after Taylor Robson and Yee spent the summer taking turns announcing various municipal and county endorsements.
Meanwhile, Rep. Aaron Lieberman (LD28) and former Nogales Mayor Marco Lopez Jr. are hoping to show the name recognition enjoyed by current Secretary of State Katie Hobbs does not mean she is the best candidate to represent the Democratic Party in the race for governor.
The multi-candidate race to the Republican nomination for Arizona Secretary of State saw its biggest news to date when former President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Mark Finchem (LD11) last week. Finchem’s most noted primary opponents are Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita (LD23) and Rep. Shawnna Bolick (LD20).
Trump’s endorsement of Finchem overshadowed the fact Rep. Reginald Bolding (LD27) snagged the endorsements last week of two prominent Democratic state lawmakers in his race against former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes for that party’s nomination for Secretary of State.
Those endorsements, from Senate Minority Leader Rebecca Rios and Senate Minority Whip Martin Quezada, came as Senate President Karen Fann announced the audit report is expected to be released shortly into how well Maricopa County -especially Fontes’ office- complied with election laws and state election rules during the 2020 General Election.
The Republican primary for State Treasurer got less bloated this month when Rep. Regina Cobb (LD5) bowed out just weeks after announcing her candidacy. Cobb will be taking an executive position with the Arizona Dental Association, leaving Sen. David Livingston (LD22) and Rep. Jeff Weninger (LD17) to duke it out.
On the Democrat side, Sen. Martin Quezada (LD29) is expected to easily win his party’s nomination in the primary.
There have not been any major changes in the race for Arizona Attorney General, where former Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould is in a close race for the Republican nomination against former federal prosecutor Lacy Cooper and UA College of Law alumna Tiffany Shedd in the primary.
And the fight for the Democratic Party nomination remains between Rep. Diego Rodriguez (LD27), former Arizona Corporation Commissioner Kris Mayes, and 2020 Legal Aid Attorney of the Year January Contreras. One Libertarian, Phoenix-based attorney Michael Kielsky, is also running for attorney general.
by AZ Free News | Sep 18, 2021 | News
Less than a year and a half after the initial economic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, Arizona has already recovered more than 100 percent of private sector jobs, representing one of the fastest jobs recoveries in the nation.
The Arizona seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased to 6.2% in August 2021 from 6.6% in July 2021. The U.S. seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased to 5.2% in August 2021 from 5.4% in July 2021.
Month over month, Arizona’s seasonally adjusted labor force increased by 6,169 individuals or 0.2%. Year over year, the labor force increased by 119,257 individuals or 3.4%. Month over month, Arizona total non-farm employment increased by 53,600 jobs or 1.8%. Year over year, total non-farm employment increased by 162,400 jobs or 5.8%.
“The last year and a half have challenged Arizonans like never before,” said Governor Doug Ducey. “But thanks to the ingenuity and perseverance of our hard-working employees and business community, Arizona’s recovery is in full swing, with a real momentum headed in the right direction. This isn’t the case for every state, and we will continue to work hard to make sure Arizonans have ample opportunity to reenter the workforce, access new skills, and get back to work.”
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 18, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
An audit report found Wickenburg Unified School District’s (WUSD) former director of operations, William Moran, had engaged in illicit contract dealings for several years. These findings were presented to the State Grand Jury earlier this week; as a result, Moran has been indicted for four felony counts of fraud, forgery, and conflict of interest.
From 2017 to 2018, Moran allegedly benefitted from a near-$100,000 contract with a vendor that provided WUSD with construction services. He received approximately 500 to 700 truckloads of dirt worth $50,000 to $70,000, and a $2,000 discount on $7,000 dirt compacting services.
The truckloads of dirt were delivered and compacted in 2017 at a personal lot that Moran owned. Moran then built a home on the lot spanning over 2,000 square feet, which he sold around two years later for $445,000.
It appears that this house flip presented itself as a lucrative opportunity, especially after his resignation from WUSD in light of allegations of misconduct. Moran currently identifies himself as a self-employed home salesman. As of press time, his LinkedIn bio says that he finished construction on at least two other homes since leaving WUSD, finished another home lot in April, and has had at least three other lots opened up since May.
Additionally, the audit report revealed that Moran allegedly leveraged his position as director of operations to grant the WUSD vendor $30,000 and in return, accept an IOU worth $25,000. The audit speculated that the $5,000 difference had to do with the dirt compacting services.
Moran was also suspected of creating at least two false price quotes for construction services. The audit was unable to determine if Moran had a relationship with either of the vendors related to these false quotes.
The audit report determined that WUSD had failed to provide “adequate oversight” to Moran’s work. However, it did commend the district for taking immediate action after receiving their first complaint that Moran was possibly engaging in illicit conduct. Additionally, the audit commended the district for increasing oversight on construction vendor contracts under $100,000, as well as preventing conflict-of-interest issues.
Prior to resigning over an alleged fake bid in 2018, Moran had worked as director of operations for 5 years, and with WUSD for over 30 years.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
