From the perspective of Arizona emergency room physician Dr. Murtaza Akhter, the COVID-19 pandemic here could be even worse than the state’s numbers are showing.

“I am taken aback. I walked into the hospital today, and I was like, ‘Oh my God’,” said Akhter, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, who works at both Florence Hospital and Valleywise Health Medical Center. “We are getting all sorts of patients who look quite sick.”…

At one point Monday morning, Tucson Medical Center had just one bed available in its ICU, according to a tweet from Tucson infectious disease physician Dr. Steven Oscherwitz. Officials at Tucson’s largest hospital, while saying his was not an official report, confirmed that Oscherwitz was “very likely” correct.

“We have been very constrained within our ICU because of the recent spike in (COVID-19) cases,” Tucson Medical Center spokeswoman Julia Strange wrote in an email to The Arizona Republic, responding to a query about Oscherwitz’s tweet.