  The MAJORANA Collaboration has assembled an array of high purity Ge detectors
to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in $^{76}$Ge with the goal of
establishing the required background and scalability of a Ge-based
next-generation ton-scale experiment. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR consists of 44
kg of high-purity Ge (HPGe) detectors (30 kg enriched in $^{76}$Ge) with a
low-noise p-type point contact (PPC) geometry. The detectors are split between
two modules which are contained in a single lead and high-purity copper shield
at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. Following a
commissioning run that started in June 2015, the full detector array has been
acquiring data since August 2016. We will discuss the status of the MAJORANA
DEMONSTRATOR and initial results from the first physics run; including current
background estimates, exotic low-energy physics searches, projections on the
physics reach of the DEMONSTRATOR, and implications for a ton-scale Ge-based
neutrinoless double-beta decay search.
