Phoenix Democratic Mayor Kate Gallego charged Friday that one major health care provider in her city has been forced to order refrigerated trucks because its hospitals have exhausted their morgue capacity.
“Our county public health agency just announced that they are going to be getting refrigerated trucks because the Abrazo health care system has run out of morgue beds,” Gallego said on MSNBC. “It is very scary out here. I wish we had given mayors the authority to act earlier.”
Abrazo Health, however, later released a statement contradicting the mayor’s claims, clarifying that “hospitals currently have adequate morgue space,” and that its order for refrigerated trucks came in response to the state requesting providers to implement their emergency plans which includes proactively preparing with backup resources.
Earlier this week, Gallego has also raised the alarm that constituents have been waiting at testing sites in more than 100 degree heat for upwards of eight hours while claiming the federal government has been of little help to Arizona to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
"Today, my county reported a positivity rate of 28.8%," says Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego about a spike in Covid-19 cases.
— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) July 6, 2020
"What I have been told by epidemiologists is they can track this surge to our reopening and not just the fact that we reopened but the way we reopened." pic.twitter.com/qGFXqf2g9q
Gallego neglected to mention however, that most of the city’s testing sites offer drive-thru testing, where individuals remain in their cars sheltered from the heat.
Phoenix City Councilmember Sal DiCiccio meanwhile, has pushed back on the mayor’s assertions of an absent federal presence reporting that the Trump administration has sent Phoenix $293 million in pandemic aid.
