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.”