February 4, 2022 - Dare Defend Your Rights

Dare Defend Your Rights

February 4, 2022

The ADPH dashboard was on the blink again yesterday, but reported 2 days worth of data today. Between Tuesday and today, ADPH reported 22,239 more cases, almost half the number for the same 4 days last week (42,858).

Hospitalizations are also down but not by as much. There are currently 2,934 statewide patients in Alabama hospitals, 10.4% below the level last Friday, according to the U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services. Every state but Montana (up 17%) has seen a drop in hospitalizations in the last 7 days and the national average is a decline of 15%.

Yes, Omicron may finally be on the wane in Alabama, as it is elsewhere in the United States. Every single state has seen a decline in reported cases this week and 49 of them have seen double-digit declines (Maine, which began the week with a low infection rate, dropped 4%). The Alabama Schools K-12 dashboard reported Thursday that 9,800 children missed school with Covid, down from 24,913 children last week.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, deaths are on the rise both nationally and also in Alabama. The country has averaged over 2,500 deaths per day this week, a level last seen a year ago when we emerged from the worst spike last January. The nation should pass the 900,000 deaths milestone sometime next week. Meanwhile, Alabama recorded 60 deaths on Tuesday; 69 more deaths on Wednesday; and 156 more deaths today.

Of course, deaths are the ultimate pandemic performance report card when all is said and done. From that standpoint, the United States in general, and the State of Alabama in particular, should be ashamed. Omicron is receding but the pandemic has left a path of destruction in its wake. By the end of March, you can count on at least 1 million Americans dead, about 1 in 6 of the world’s Covid-19 deaths. On a per capita basis, the United States has more per capita deaths than Armenia, Colombia and Mexico, not to mention every country in Western Europe.

As for Alabama, we are now 4th in the nation in per capita deaths - trailing only Mississippi, Arizona & New Jersey - and it is a near certainty we will soon pass New Jersey, the state which bore the brunt of the initial wave in early 2020 as well as the onslaught of Omicron. If Alabama were a country, it would rank 6th in the world in per capita deaths (the U.S. ranks 15th). Only Peru, Bulgaria, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Hungary, and Russia-controlled Georgia have allowed a higher percentage of their citizens to die from Covid than the State of Alabama, whose official motto is “We Dare Defend Our Rights”.

I am no longer shocked by these numbers. After all, this is a state in which a group calling itself “Concerned Doctors” can get away with lobbying the Governor to include a prohibition of vaccine mandates in her special session on prison construction; a group whose website alleged, without evidence, that vaccines “kill more people than they save for all age groups”; a group that endorses the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19 and has collaborated with “America’s Frontline Doctors”, a discredited organization that endorsed and profited from the sale of hydroxychloroquine. https://www.alreporter.com/2021/10/01/alabama-doctors-behind-anti-vaccine-letter-to-kay-ivey/

None of this surprises me anymore. I just want it to be over. I regret I seem more callous than I started out, but I have reached the conclusion that choices have consequences … and those consequences also demand accountability. The totals:

1/21 - 16,525

1/22 - 17,031

1/23 - 9,087

1/24 - 5,955

1/25 - 8,808

1/26 - 10,703

1/27 - 12,173

1/28 - 11,174

1/29 - 10,751

1/30 - 6,490

1/31 - 5,459

2/1 - 5,639

2/2 - 5,404

2/3 - not reporting

2/4 - 11,196