Arizona Releases COVID-19 Cases By Zip Code

PHOENIX – On Sunday, the Arizona Department of Health Services released more complete COVID-19 case data, including cases by ZIP code.  The data was released after Arizona State Legislator Rep. Kelly Townsend, along with city and town-level officials, filed a lawsuit demanding more information be made available to the public.

As of April 12, there have been a total of 3,539 COVID-19 cases reported in Arizona, with 115 deaths.

“I am intrigued by the data that we have finally been able to obtain from the Arizona Department of Health,” said Townsend, a professional in the healthcare industry. “Although it is Easter, I have been combing over this data to see what we can conclude. It confirmed what I suspected; there are indeed hot spots in the State. I would like to know if the Department knew about these hot spots, and what was being done about it.”

“I also find it interesting that there is a general trend of numbers from area to area, between 11 – 25 cases per ZIP code,” continued Townsend. “There are anomalies however, in Mesa, for example, you have four adjacent zip codes, all with 11 cases each. That is a head-scratcher, in and of itself. However, just two ZIP codes to the East and you have 53 cases, one of the highest areas in the State. This should be a warning that just because you are in a ZIP code with a low number of cases, just down the street could be a pathogen waiting for a host. Take nothing for granted, and protect yourself as usual.”

“I have also noticed that the ZIP codes with high numbers do not follow a specific trend,” stated Townsend. You have hot spots in Scottsdale, South Tucson, North Tucson, Central Tucson, East Mesa, and Queen Creek. This spans all ages and demographics. Clearly, COVID-19 is not a respecter of any class, age, ethnicity, or religion. It’ll accept any as it’s host. We can see that it doesn’t discriminate as to host, but unfortunately it kills those, who have one or two underlying conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Those diseases from which the poorest among us suffer disproportionately.”

“I wonder how we could have approached this issue had we been tracking these numbers down to the ZIP code level early on.” Townsend asked, “How would we have reached out to those in a hot spot to ensure they knew that they should take extra caution?”

“I also think it is important to keep in perspective the percentage of people in a ZIP code who are getting sick. For example in Mesa, ZIP code 85207, there are 22 cases out of 52,872 people who live there. That is 0.0004160757% of the ZIP code’s population testing positive. That does not necessarily mean they are the only ones getting sick because we do not have widespread testing available to make an accurate conclusion,” concluded Townsend.

“I complained to the Department of Health Services that Arizona was not releasing infection rates by municipality or ZIP code as many states were doing,” stated Rep. John Kavanagh. “They replied that it would violate patient confidentiality, which is absurd. Eventually, they promised me that I would be pleased with the enhanced information they would release on Sunday, which had the ZIP code data. Finally some truth!”

Top 50 Case Count By ZIP Code*

*If a patient’s address of residence is unknown cases were mapped to the address of the provider followed by the address of the reporting facility. Tribal approval pending (data for zip codes where tribal residents make up more than 50% of the population will be suppressed at this time).

ZIP code map released by AZDHS. You can search for your ZIP code.

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