February 8, 2022
Daily reported cases are rapidly declining but hospitalizations remain stubbornly high … and deaths are rising fast. Those are the latest takeaways in Alabama.
Over the last 7 days, we have averaged 3,783 cases per day, a 57.5% decline compared to the prior week, when the average was 8,912 cases per day. The positivity rate in Alabama is 25.1%, still quite high but well below the 40%+ positivity rate that prevailed for virtually the entire month of January. The results of at-home tests are not included in these numbers.
There are currently 2,700 patients in Alabama’s hospitals, according to the U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services. Last week at this time, there were 3,083 patients, 14% more than now. That sounds like significant progress - and it is - but you must remember that almost every state has seen an even larger drop in hospitalizations. Alabama still has the 2nd highest per capita hospitalization rate in the nation over the last 7 days (55 per 100K population), but we are well off our high of 3,307 patients on January 25.
A total of 17,407 Alabamians have now died in this pandemic, including 952 since the start of 2022. The United States has averaged over 2,600 Covid deaths per day for each of the last 14 days, higher than at any time since February 2021.
Meanwhile, resistance to vaccination remains as impenetrable as ever in Alabama. Only 49.6% of the State’s population is fully vaccinated, making us the only state that still falls below 50%. For that reason, I expect our hospitalization rate will not drop as quickly as in other places. Choctaw County has the highest vaccination rate (64%), while Madison Co. (60%) and Jefferson Co. (57%) - home to Huntsville and Birmingham, respectively - have the 2nd and 3rd highest rates. Only 22% of the residents of Winston County are fully vaccinated.
Omicron has been particularly lethal to people over the age of 75, the unvaccinated and the medically vulnerable, according to public health officials. Nearly half the deaths in January were 75 and older, compared to just one-third in September. Whereas deaths during the Delta surge skewed younger, now the age distribution of deaths resembles the deadliest stage of the pandemic last winter. One factor, according to many experts, is that seniors, who were recently vaccinated before Delta emerged, did not get boosters ahead of Omicron, causing higher numbers of seniors to become infected in the latest wave.
Deaths are rising in the South, which experienced the Omicron surge later than elsewhere, and there is plenty of dry tinder in Alabama. Wes Stubblefield, a district medical officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health, put it like this: “This disease is still killing Alabamians. It’s a severe illness, more deadly than other common respiratory illnesses.” Stubblefield’s boss, State Health Officer Scott Harris, was more blunt in his weekly press briefing: “We want to prevent people from becoming severely ill or dying. The vaccine prevents people from getting really sick, it prevents people from dying.” The totals:
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
2/5 - 1,924
2/6 - not reporting
2/7 - 3,456
2/8 - 4,507