作为对…的战争新冠肺炎亚利桑那州已经成为世界上最大的热点之一。
国家看到了COVID-19例自该州5月15日重新开放以来增长了850%。在该州接受测试的人中，超过三分之一的人感染了这种病毒。受灾最严重的地区之一是西凤凰城的玛丽维尔社区。
美国广播公司新闻采访了患者、测试管理人员、凤凰城市长和社区的一名医生，并与凤凰城消防局25号引擎的第一反应人员一起出现在战斗的前线。
这一次，电话是打给30岁的建筑工人马丁·莫利纳的，他说自己发烧了，头痛欲裂。时机再糟糕不过了——他的女朋友叶塞妮娅·洛佩兹上周末刚刚生下了他们的儿子。他们11个月大的女儿也在发烧。
洛佩兹告诉美国广播公司新闻:“老实说，我不能相信这种流行病。”“但现在我知道了。现在我害怕了。我该怎么办?我不知道。我不知道，我家里有两个孩子。”
叶塞妮娅·洛佩兹上周末刚生了个儿子。她和马丁11岁的女儿也在发烧。字母表
想到自己会生病，洛佩兹哭了起来，用拇指拨弄着她的圣裘德吊坠。她想知道谁会关心她。
她说:“我的意思是我妈妈可以帮我，但我不知道。”“这很难，但我们会挺过去的。”
对莫利纳生命体征的初步评估似乎充满希望。现场的一名急救人员表示，他的症状轻微——没有发烧，肺部清晰，血压和血糖处于良好水平。
该小组主动提出将莫利纳送往医院，警告说他可能要等一段时间，因为他还没有病到需要立即治疗的程度。这对夫妇认为无论如何都值得去。
马丁·莫利纳在生病两天后接受了急救人员的评估。字母表
凤凰城消防队队长罗布·麦克达德在接受美国广播公司采访时表示:“在玛丽维尔，人们有一个共同生活的光荣传统……不幸的是，这就是人们的负担能力，他们都住在同一个屋檐下。”“我们对这些人负责...就这样。我们的卡车上写着。上面写着，“我们的家庭帮助你的家庭。”我们的消防队员将此铭记于心。"
工程师克里斯·韦斯特说，玛丽维尔紧密团结的大自然和多代同堂的家庭可能无意中助长了病毒在那里的传播。
韦斯特说:“我们有很多家庭住在一起。”“很多人，他们在房子里长大，他们呆在房子里。所以，是的，通常当一个人得到它，整个房子都会得到它。”
韦斯特自己在家里被病毒隔离后刚刚回到工作岗位。
工程师克里斯·韦斯特说，正是玛丽维尔的紧密联系也帮助了病毒在社区的蔓延。字母表
“当一切都关闭时，我们可能会去(这个社区)一次、两次。韦斯特说:“当我们接到COVID的电话时，这是一件大事。”"然后，我们几乎所有的呼叫都是COVID呼叫."
在美国各地，拉丁裔和非裔美国人感染这种病毒的比率是他们白人邻居的三倍。他们死于癌症的可能性也是前者的两倍。
阻止病毒的攻击依赖于测试，凤凰城市长凯特·加列戈说这是一个几乎完全崩溃的系统。
“我们需要联邦政府提供更多资源。这就是美国。”“我们是世界领先的经济体。在COVID-19病毒感染后的几个月里，我们应该能够为病情最严重的居民提供更多的资源...人们不应该等了一整天才得到测试结果，然后又等了一个星期才得到结果。”
Gallego和健康前线的医护人员预计亚利桑那州的问题可能会变得更糟。
她说:“医院的首席执行官们告诉我，他们正准备应对因大型活动(尤其是大型家庭活动)而导致的病例激增。”
然而，由于没有快速检测，像洛佩兹和莫利纳这样的玛丽维尔居民只能在拥挤的多代同堂的家中等待结果，担心他们会传染给家人。
Gallego说:“我能够直接与负责美国测试的海军上将交谈，并把他的注意力吸引到玛丽维尔。”“他确实说过他会看数据……我给他的信息是明天太晚了。我们必须尽快把你送到这里。”
凤凰城市长凯特·加列戈承认她的城市正处于医疗危机的阵痛之中。字母表
南凤凰城是一个测试服务不足的地区，一个免费测试网站由一个非营利组织运营，目标是每天测试2000人。
网站在早上6点开放，但是寻求测试的人在半夜开始排队——包括科娜·科尔的三代家人。
科尔告诉美国广播公司新闻，他们在午夜后到达。
她说:“我们想成为第一批到达这里的人之一，这样我们今天就能进行测试。”“我们必须保护自己和家人的生命，所以我们需要知道。”
网站在早上6点开放，但是寻求测试的人在半夜开始排队——包括科娜·科尔的三代家人。字母表
像许多其他网站一样，这个网站无法满足他们所获得的供应量的需求。
他们不得不拒绝像尼尔·麦克这样的人，他上次来时已经等了五个半小时了。这一次，他在凌晨1点出现。他说他专门访问这个网站，因为它不需要健康保险。
麦克说:“我不知道是谁在管理它，但我很高兴他们是。”
测试的缺乏让洛里·梁君诺和丹尼斯·苏格斯感到困惑，他们是在凌晨4点到达的
Suggs告诉ABC新闻:“他们没有提供(测试)给我们-低收入，中产阶级-很多人没有保险，负担不起这个。”“在亚利桑那州，你不可能免费得到这个。”
测试的缺乏让洛里·梁君诺和丹尼斯·苏格斯感到困惑，他们是在凌晨4点到达的字母表
梁君诺告诉美国广播公司新闻:“有钱人确实要接受测试，像运动队，棒球队，总统。”"但每天，中等收入者都要降低收入——这是我们唯一的选择."
亚利桑那州州长道格·杜西(Doug Ducey)在一周多以来首次公开谈论这种病毒，他承认，5月份放松家庭订单是6月份疫情迅速升级和病例增多的主要原因。
HonorHealth系统的COVID-19响应主管萨姆·杜拉尼博士指出，由于报告滞后，很难找到病毒的真正流行程度。
他说:“一些测试被推迟了七天，因为测试中心是如此不堪重负。”
两周前，当唐纳德·特朗普总统在凤凰城举行集会时，杜拉尼加入了美国广播公司。他被面具的缺乏震惊了，他开始抓拍人群的照片。
“这不好，”他说。"现在任何大规模的集会都会促使COVID的病例扩散."
COVID荣誉健康中心的负责人萨姆·杜拉尼博士说，我们的国家“应该做好更多的准备。”字母表
总统当晚的信息是COVID-19正在“消失”。杜拉尼说，这不是真的。
“形势明显恶化了。在过去两周，我们的住院率上升了大约80%。这是一个快速增长。”
杜拉尼说，美国“应该为大流行做好更多准备。”
他说:“这是一个失败，我们没有快速，容易获得的测试在我们国家的每个人。”
如果病毒不能在墙后传播，呆在家里只能对抗病毒
理想情况下，当莫利纳回到他的孩子、女朋友和年迈的父母身边时，他应该能够隔离，直到他得知他的COVID-19测试结果——但这不是现实。
洛佩兹说:“他不能被孤立。”“我很担心，因为我们都生活在一起——我的孩子，尤其是我的两个小宝宝……他们就是我的生命。”
莫利纳告诉美国广播公司新闻，他收到了他的测试结果——他对COVID-19呈阳性。
Arizona community becomes COVID-19 hot spot without access to speedy testing
As the war againstCOVID-19continues across the country, Arizona has become one of the world’s biggest hot spots.
The state sawCOVID-19 casesincrease 850% since the state reopened on May 15. More than one in three of those tested in the state have the virus. One of the hardest hit areas is the Maryvale neighborhood in West Phoenix.
ABC News spoke to patients, test administrators, the Mayor of Phoenix, and a doctor in the community -- and rode along with first responders from Phoenix Fire Department’s Engine 25 on the frontlines of the battle there.
This time, the call was for Martin Molina, a 30-year-old construction worker who said he had a fever and splitting headaches. The timing couldn’t be worse -- his girlfriend, Yesenia Lopez, just gave birth to their son last weekend. Their 11-month-old daughter was also running a temperature.
“To be honest, I wasn’t able to believe in this pandemic,” Lopez told ABC News. “But now I do. Now I’m scared. What am I going to do? I don’t know. I don’t know, I have my two little babies in the house.”
Lopez broke into tears, thumbing her St. Jude pendant, at the thought of getting sick herself. Who would care for her, she wondered.
“I mean my mom can help me out, but I don’t know,” she said. “It’s hard, but we’ll go through this.”
The initial assessment of Molina’s vital signs seemed hopeful. An EMT on the scene said his symptoms were mild – without a fever, his lungs were clear and his blood pressure and blood sugar were at a good level.
The team offered to take Molina to the hospital, cautioning that he may be waiting for a while because he wasn’t not sick enough to warrant immediate attention. The couple decided it was worth going anyway.
“In Maryvale, there’s a proud tradition of families living together… Unfortunately that's the situation for affordability, where they're all under one roof,” Phoenix Fire Dept. Capt. Rob McDade told ABC News. “We're responsible for these people... This is it. It says it on our trucks. It says, ‘Our family helping your family.’ And our firefighters take that to heart.”
Engineer Chris West says it’s the tight-knit nature and multi-generational families in Maryvale may have inadvertently helped spread the virus there.
“We have a lot of families that live together,” West said. “Lots of people, they grow up in the house, they stay in the house. So yes, usually when one person gets it, the whole house is going to get it.”
West himself is just returning to work after isolating at home with the virus.
“When everything was shut down, we’d go [to this community] like maybe once, twice. It was a big deal when we had a COVID call,” West said. “Then it got to the point where almost all of our calls are COVID calls.”
Across the U.S., Latinos and African Americans are contracting the virus at three times the rate of their white neighbors. They’re also twice as likely to die from it.
Arresting the virus’ onslaught depends on testing, which Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego says is a system near total collapse.
“We need more resources from our federal government. This is the United States of America,” she told ABC News. “We are the world’s leading economy. We ought to be able to provide more resources for our sickest residents months into the COVID-19 virus... People should not have to wait an entire day to get a test and then a week to get a result.”
Gallego andhealthcare providers on the frontlines anticipate that the problem in Arizona could get worse.
“The hospital CEOs tell me they are preparing for a significant surge of cases that come as a result of large events, particularly for large family events,” she said.
However, without rapid testing, Maryvale residents like Lopez and Molina are left waiting for results in crowded multigenerational homes, fearing they’ll infect their families.
“I was able to speak directly to the admiral who is in charge of testing for the United States and draw his attention to Maryvale,” Gallego said. “He did say that he will look at the data… My message to him is tomorrow is too late. We have to get you here as soon as possible. “
A free testing site in South Phoenix, an area underserved in testing, is run by a nonprofit organization and aims to test 2,000 people a day.
The site opens at 6 a.m., but people seeking tests started lining up in the middle of the night -- including three generations of Keona Cole’s family.
Cole told ABC News they arrived slightly after midnight.
“We wanted to be one of the first to get here so that we’ll be able to get tested today,” she said. “It’s our lives and the lives of our family that we have to protect, so we need to know.”
This site, like so many others, just can’t meet demand with the amount of supplies they’re given.
They’ve had to turn away people like Neil Mack, who waited five and a half hours the last time he came. This time, he showed up at 1 a.m. He said he visits this site specifically because it doesn’t require health insurance.
“I don’t know who’s running it but I’m glad they are,” Mack said.
The lack of testing is baffling to Lori Nicolson and Denise Suggs, who arrived at 4 a.m.
“They are not offering [tests] to us -- the low income, the middle class -- a lot of people do not have insurance, cannot afford to pay for this,” Suggs told ABC News. “There’s nowhere in Arizona you can go get this for free.”
“People with money do get tested, like sports teams, baseball teams, the president,” Nicolson told ABC News. “But every day, middle income to lower income -- this is our only option.”
Speaking publicly about the virus for the first time in over a week, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey admitted that loosening the stay-at-home orders in May was the primary cause for the rapid escalation and cases in June.
Dr. Sam Durrani, the COVID-19 response chief for the HonorHealth system, points out it’s difficult to find the virus’ true prevalence because of a lag in reporting.
“Some of the testing is delayed seven days because the testing centers are so overwhelmed,” he said.
Durrani joined ABC News two weeks ago when President Donald Trump held a rally in Phoenix. He was so shocked by the lack of masks, he started snapping pictures of the crowd.
“It’s not good,” he said. “Any mass gathering right now is going to prompt the cases of COVID to spread.”
The president’s message that night was that COVID-19 is “going away.” That’s not true, Durrani says.
“The situation [has] obviously worsened. In the last two weeks, our hospitalizations have gone up by about 80%. It's been a rapid increase,” he said.
Durrani says the United States “should have been more prepared” for a pandemic.
“It is a failure that we do not have rapid, readily available tests for everyone in our country,” he said.
Staying at home can only combat the virus if the virus cannot spread behind those walls
Ideally, when Molina came home to his children, girlfriend and his elderly parents, he should’ve been able to isolate until he learns his COVID-19 test results -- but that isn’t a reality.
“He cannot be isolated,” Lopez said. “I was concerned because we all lived together -- my babies, especially, my two little babies… They're my life.”
Molina told ABC News he received his test results -- he is positive for COVID-19.
