December 22, 2020 - Christmas Week
Christmas Week
December 22, 2020
It’s three days before Christmas and Alabama was just handed a big lump of coal, with the release of a report showing 4,979 new cases (incl. 1,431 probables). That’s more than twice the number of cases yesterday (2380) and it’s the 2nd highest single-day total in the entire pandemic. Tragically, 63 more Alabamians lost their lives. According to BamaTracker, our average positivity rate over the last 7 days is 37.25%. The Johns Hopkins website put the positivity rate even higher - 40.4% - which would rank Alabama 2nd in the nation in that category, behind Idaho.
Confirmed hospitalizations remained about the same - 2,527 (107 reporting hospitals), compared to 2,526 (105 reporting hospitals) yesterday. However, the latest HHS report on ICU availability (updated: December 21) paints a grim picture of increasing desperation inside those hospitals.
Consider these ICU occupancy rates for some of the State’s largest hospitals: St. Vincent’s (Bhm) - 101%; UAB Hospital - 96%; Huntsville Hospital - 94%; Mobile Infirmary - 95%; Thomas Hospital (Fairhope) - 96%; Baptist South (Montgomery) - 100%; Jackson Hospital (Montgomery) - 100%; DCH Health - 88%; Gadsden Regional - 100%; Northeast Alabama (Anniston) - 100%; Cullman Regional - 148%; Southeast Health (Dothan) - 108%. Some hospitals are starting to double up in their ICU’s. For instance, Cullman Regional has a 12-bed ICU but 18 patients are on ventilators. Cullman County (population 83,000) is now losing, on average, more than one of its residents to COVID every single day.
According to The COVID Tracking Project, over the last 7 days, Alabama has seen: (i) new daily reported cases rise 13.7%; (ii) new daily reported deaths rise 80.8%; (iii) COVID-related hospitalizations rise 10.2%; (iv) the positivity rate rise to 40.4%; and (v) the number of tests fall 7.6%. Our statistics are considerably worse than the national average, which saw no material change in cases, deaths rise 6.3%, hospitalizations rise 4.5%, tests remain flat, and a positivity rate of 11.2%.
Meanwhile, Christmas travel appears robust nationwide. According to TSA, pre-Christmas air travel surpassed 1 million daily passengers nationwide for three consecutive days this past weekend. The 3.2 million passengers screened Friday, Saturday and Sunday mark the only time during the pandemic that over 1 million air travelers were seen three days in a row.
This close to Christmas Day, most people have already made their plans for the holidays and those plans are not likely to change. It is not too late, however, to be hyper-vigilant when visiting high-risk family members. One Huntsville physician offered an observation, followed by some advice: "The virus is spreading so effectively in our community - and it is spreading through asymptomatic folks - until it lands on somebody who has a vulnerability.....so you just simply cannot tell. Assume everyone you meet is active and act accordingly." Here are the totals:
12/9 - 3522
12/10 - 4735
12/11 - 3853
12/12 - 4066
12/13 - 2790
12/14 - 2264
12/15 - 3638
12/16 - 4107
12/17 - 4695
12/18 - 5348
12/19 - 4221
12/20 - 2548
12/21 - 2380
12/22 - 4979
Jefferson County reported 790 cases; Madison County had 422, while Tuscaloosa County had 293. Nearly half of the counties (31 of 67) now have 14-day positivity rates above 40%. By way of comparison, only 2 counties had rates that exceeded 40% as recently as a week before the election.