Gov. Doug Ducey only used the word “Covid” three times in his 50-minute-long State of the State Address on January 10 – the governor and his aides billed the 2022 speech as a return to regular business, after the January 2021 edition was conducted virtually during a severe Covid surge.

But the pandemic still loomed large over the annual address and the opening sessions of the Arizona House of Representatives and Senate on Monday.

Ducey strode into the House chamber shortly after 2 p.m. without a facemask, smiling and shaking hands with supporters. None of the Republicans were wearing a mask; most Democrats donned a face covering. That morning, the Arizona Department of Health Services added nearly 14,000 new Covid cases to its data dashboard.

“There is nowhere else I’d rather be right now than here, in this chamber, on this floor, together, in person, smiling, shaking hands,” Ducey said in the first minute of the speech.

Those warm and personal interactions, however, were exactly what kept some Democratic figures at home. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Rep. Andrea Dalessandro, D-Green Valley, and Rep. Athena Salman, D-Tempe, all cited Covid concerns for staying away from the event. Rep. Joanne Osborne, R-Goodyear, skipped the speech because she had Covid.

As the Legislature began a session with partisan tensions high, Ducey effectively set the party line for the state GOP: it’s time to put the pandemic behind us.

“There’s been too much attention put on masks and not nearly enough placed on math,” he said while talking about the learning loss during the pandemic.

Democrats, for their part, made the pandemic a bigger part of their opening day message and accused the governor of abandoning the fight against Covid.

“What stands in our way is a governor who has lost interest in the pandemic,” House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, said in a news conference earlier in the day.

Democratic legislators rolled out a 2022 agenda that includes plans to direct federal Covid relief money to public schools and water issues. Ducey’s spending plans would also dip into federal Covid money, though he didn’t mention the provenance of the cash.

“Covid-19 is the leading cause of death here in the state of Arizona, (but) if you would have sat through the governor’s State of the State, you would have not known that’s at all the reality,” Bolding said in an interview. “We have to make sure we are providing schools and the public with the guidance that they need to be successful. No one in either chamber in our caucuses are calling for shutdown for schools (or) for businesses, but we are asking the governor, we are asking the Legislature to not penalize these institutions that choose to put science first.”

The latest Covid surge, largely attributed to the Omicron variant, was in full swing on January 10. It’s put strain onto hospitals, caused hours-long wait times at Covid testing centers and led a number of Valley school districts to reimpose mask mandates.

On January 11, ADHS reported 213 new Covid deaths. Ducey didn’t mention any plans to address the omicron surge in his speech – though he also didn’t call for bringing back provisions like a law banning mask mandates that was struck down by the Arizona Supreme Court last year in the budget logrolling case.

In his State of the State Address, Ducey talked about Covid primarily in terms of learning and education. He announced a summer camp to address learning loss suffered during the pandemic and accused “school board bureaucrats” of playing politics around Covid, to the detriment of disadvantaged children.

He also took a swing at federal “mismanagement of Covid” and touted the state’s high vaccination rate for seniors, even though Arizona’s vaccination rate for the whole population is at or below the middle of the pack compared to other states.

In a media call before the governor’s speech, Daniel Ruiz, Ducey’s chief of staff, said the governor is focusing on vaccination, but he also claimed that public health policies like mask mandates don’t work. “No mitigation strategy really has been able to address this issue nationally or locally,” Ruiz said.

At the two legislative chambers, rules were mainly back to the pre-Covid status quo for the start of the 2022 session, with members allowed to vote in floor sessions remotely but not to participate in either floor debates or committee meetings without being present.

Salman, the Democratic representative from Tempe who didn’t attend the State of the State, isn’t happy about that. She was 40 weeks pregnant and expected to give birth last week and lambasted House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, shortly before the session started for not agreeing to let her participate remotely. Salman said she would have been fine with the same remote work rules that were in place during last year’s session.

“I’m being forced into an environment that significantly jeopardizes my life and significantly jeopardizes the life and well-being of my future baby,” she said. “It’s just cruel.”

With hundreds in attendance at various opening day events, it’s not clear how many people may have been sick with Covid during the speeches and sessions, but at least one State of the State attendee had it shortly before the event.

House Majority Leader Ben Toma, R-Peoria, said his Covid symptoms included sore throat and body aches, but he received several negative test results, including one January 9, before attending the governor’s address. “It’s all right,” he said on the day of the speech, adding that he didn’t feel 100% but was “definitely on the mend.”