August 14, 2022
This week marks an important milestone in Alabama’s battle with the coronavirus. This is the week in which my state officially surpassed 20,000 Covid deaths, joining 17 other states with that dubious distinction. As many Alabamians have now died of Covid as every man, woman and child living in my home town of Mountain Brook, Alabama.
I haven’t written as much lately about death even though hundreds of Americans are dying of Covid each and every day. Over the last seven days alone, the U.S. has reported just under 2,700 Covid deaths. Although the burden of hospitalization and death continues to affect primarily individuals who are still unvaccinated and those with conditions that place them at highest risk, the risk cannot be ignored by others.
Fortunately, the predominant variant, BA.5, has proven to be less lethal than its predecessors as we have learned more and better ways to treat those who are sick. In the last week, hospitalizations from Covid increased 2% compared to the prior week - from 785 patients to 801 patients. This number is only 25% as high as the record 3,355 statewide patients recorded on January 4, 2021.
I expect hospitalizations to decline next week due to an 18% drop in reported cases in Alabama this week. We are now averaging fewer than 2,000 new cases per day - 1,909 to be exact. That’s 23% below the most recent high of 2,481 cases per day, set on July 23.
Ironically, just as the most recent surge unwinds, we have been reminded of the consequences of one of the pandemic’s most destructive legacies - a stronger anti-vaccination movement. On Friday, New York City health authorities announced they had found the polio virus in wastewater samples, suggesting that polio is now circulating there for the first time in decades. The announcement came three weeks after a man in Rockland County, N.Y., north of the city, was diagnosed with a case of polio that left him with paralysis.
The spread of the polio virus poses the greatest risk to unvaccinated people, but three doses of the current vaccine provide at least 99% protection against severe disease. There are only two countries in the world today, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where polio is considered endemic. It has been kept under control in the rest of the world through the wide use of vaccines. Derek Ehrhardt, an epidemiologist at the CDC, reminded us that “what we are seeing in NY is a wake-up call for folks who thought poliovirus was just a problem elsewhere.” The totals:
7/30 - not reporting
7/31 - not reporting
8/1 - 4,364
8/2 - 2,239
8/3 - 3,037
8/4 - 2,407
8/5 - 2,140
8/6 - not reporting
8/7 - not reporting
8/8 - 1,928
8/9 - 2,735
8/10- not reporting
8/11 - 4,529
8/12 - 2,186