July 17, 2021
Alabama witnessed 965 new cases on Thursday and 999 more on Friday. The last time we saw 950+ new daily cases for any sustained period was nearly 5 months ago. Our 7-day moving average is now 644 cases per day, which is comparable to the daily average in early March. The 7-day positivity rate in Alabama has topped 9% for the first time since February. And hospitals are taking in more patients - 429 confirmed patients in 97 reporting hospitals (4.42 per hospital), which is comparable to the level of statewide in-patients in mid-March.
“A pandemic of the unvaccinated” is what CDC Director Walensky has called it, referring to the disproportionate burden of the recent surge borne by those pockets of the U.S. with low vaccination rates. Over 40,000 new cases were reported yesterday, up from 9,800 cases on June 27. Only 5 states (FL; TX; MO; LA; and AR) are responsible for 45% of those new cases, with Florida alone accounting for 1 in 5. More than 97% of hospitalizations and 99% of the deaths this week were unvaccinated individuals.
Greene County, in southwestern Missouri, may be a harbinger of what’s in store for us. About 40% of the residents of the county are vaccinated (in nearby counties, the percentage is 20%), and cases began ticking up in late May. Last week, new daily cases topped 250 and by Wednesday, the daily count hit 405, largely due to Delta. The ICUs are filling with younger patients, in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, including many with no underlying health problems. According to a respiratory therapist at Mercy Hospital Springfield, the younger patients they’re now seeing are much sicker than those they saw last year.
Meanwhile, health care workers are more exhausted than ever and many are starting to resent their patients. That leads to feelings of guilt. “I’m a mom of a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old, and the daughter of family members in Zimbabwe and South Africa who can’t get vaccinated yet”, said one nurse. “I’m frustrated, angry, and sad.”
In the first half of 2021, the United States was the envy of the world because vaccines were so plentiful. But then, the U.S. hit a wall of vaccine hesitancy, which has turned into hostility, and vaccine myths are propagating that are untethered to reality. It speaks volumes that ADPH felt the need, just 2 days ago, to issue this tweet: “Receiving a vaccine will not make you magnetic. #COVID19 vaccines do not contain ingredients that can produce an electromagnetic field at the site of your injection.”
Such crazy disinformation may seem laughable, but it has an impact. Today, there are 15 countries with a higher percentage of fully vaccinated individuals than the U.S., including Canada, Spain and the UK.
Again, southwestern Missouri offers a cautionary tale. During the flu pandemic in 1918, local papers used to publish lists of people who were sick, so even those who didn’t know anyone with the flu could see that folks around them were dying. Not so anymore, due to concerns about privacy and fewer hometown newspapers. “I work in the ICU, where it’s like a war zone, and I go out in public and everything’s normal,” said Amelia Montgomery, a CoxHealth nurse in Springfield. “You see death and suffering, and then you walk into the grocery store and encounter hostility. It feels like we’re being ostracized by our community.”
7/2 - 315
7/7 - 1,613
7/9 - 1,160
7/10 - 534
7/12 - 610
7/14 -1,398
7/15 - 965
7/16 - 999