July 19, 2020 - The Big Picture
The Big Picture
July 19, 2020
For those who are starved for good news, today brings a crumb. With 1,777 new cases (incl. 92 probables), this is the first time since July 7 that our single-day total has been less than the 7-day average (1,918). Better news comes with the report of only a single death today. Weekend data can be misleading with fewer hospitals reporting, so we’ll have to see if these numbers hold up into next week. ADPH does not report hospitalizations on weekends.
When I began writing this daily digest on May 1, our 7-day average positivity rate stood at 3.04%, the lowest level in over a month. Little did I know then that the average positivity rate would never be so low again - it now stands at 17.61%. What concerned me most on May 1 and what led me to begin writing my post, was the lifting of Alabama’s stay-at-home order without a plan to mandate masks, despite a clear pattern of rising infections. I felt my FB friends deserved to know the facts.
On April 14, the White House had issued its 18-page guidelines titled, “Opening Up America Again”, urging states not to lift stay-at-home orders until they reached a 14-day period of steadily declining cases. At the time, the guidelines were widely seen as a way to deflect attention away from the embarrassing fact that the country could not reopen on Easter Sunday, as the President had advocated.
It took precisely two days for President Trump to ignore his own guidelines. On April 16, the President advised the nation’s governors they could ignore White House guidelines and reopen by May 1 if they wanted to. Just one week later (April 23), Georgia Gov. Kemp did precisely that, issuing an executive order allowing dine-in restaurants, gyms, nail salons and tattoo parlors to reopen. That same day, Georgia set record highs in both cases and deaths. On April 28, our governor followed Georgia’s lead, allowing retailers, gyms, salons and beaches to reopen without encouraging, let alone mandating, face coverings.
I hope this is a useful reminder of how we landed in the mess we find ourselves in today. On May 1, there were 7,294 total cases compared to over 67,000 today. On May 1, 495 Alabamians were in hospitals compared to 1,463 on Friday. On May 1, 289 Alabamians had died of this disease compared to 1,254 today. Today’s NY Times contains a highly informative front-page article entitled, “Inside Trump’s Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus”, which sheds important light on this monumental failure. Now, for the 14-day totals:
7/6 - 925
7/7 - 907
7/8 - 1,110
7/9 - 2,212
7/10 - 1,334
7/11 - 1,402
7/12 - 1,640
7/13 - 1,958
7/14 - 1,710
7/15 - 1,817
7/16 - 2,021
7/17 - 2,003
7/18 - 2,143
7/19 - 1,777
Jefferson (240), Madison (139), Mobile (118) and Baldwin (118) counties each exceeded 100 cases