Tucson Mayor Seeking Citywide Curfew As Coronavirus Cases Rise

TUCSON, AZ — With coronavirus cases on the rise throughout Pima County, Tucson's mayor wants the city to take action.

Mayor Regina Romero will convene a special meeting with the Tucson City Council on Tuesday evening and has called for a citywide curfew after consulting with health officials, she announced in a Twitter thread. The county already has a voluntary curfew in place.

Romero said that she and the council will consider a mandatory curfew on city streets and public places from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. from Tuesday through Dec. 22. According to her tweets, exceptions would be made for people going to work or essential services.

"The reality is that we have waited, and waited, and despite a huge surge, we have not seen any meaningful action from Gov. Ducey," she wrote regarding Arizona's governor. "It is in the absence of this statewide direction that we now have to act locally."

Arizona reported 10,322 new coronavirus cases and 48 confirmed deaths Monday. Pima County accounted for 944 cases and four deaths. It's the highest daily total in the state since the pandemic began, though health officials have said the high number is likely due to erratic reporting over Thanksgiving weekend.

The top doctor at at Banner Health, Arizona’s largest hospital chain, said last week that forecasts showed its medical centers would exceed 125 percent of their licensed capacity on Friday.

A research team from the nearby University of Arizona also recently called on Ducey to institute a statewide mask mandate and a three-week shutdown.

Without such steps, "it would be akin to facing a major forest fire without evacuation orders," members of the COVID Modeling Team at the University of Arizona said in a letter Friday to the state Department of Health Services. The team has tracked the outbreak since spring.

Many local governments have imposed mask mandates since Ducey last summer lifted a prohibition on such orders. The local mandates cover an estimated 90 percent of the state's population, but enforcement is lax or non-existent in some places. A statewide measure, the modeling team wrote, "ensures consistency and strengthens compliance."

Ducey said at his most recent news conference that he will not issue a statewide mask mandate.

Other steps recommended by the university team include providing economic aid to affected small businesses and families, and preventing evictions and foreclosures.

Romero's tweets indicated that relief will be considered during Tuesday's meeting as well.

"Still, more support will be needed, and I urge both Gov. Ducey and Congress to act as soon as possible to provide additional economic relief," she wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.

This article originally appeared on the Tucson Patch