Medical experts say there’s now no question Arizona is seeing an upward trend in COVID-19 infections. Arizona is now averaging more than 1,000 cases per day, more than double what the state was reporting a month ago. “It’s hard for us in our modeling groups to understand how long this next wave might last or how bad it might get, but it looks like the start of another major or significant wave,” said Dr. Joe Gerald with the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. Gerald said new cases in Arizona are on the kind of upward trajectory the state has only seen before the big surges last winter and summer. With about half of the state's population now vaccinated, Gerald doesn’t expect this surge to be as severe as the previous one, but said that’s hard to predict.