July 27, 2021
Delta has continued to spread in Alabama with breathtaking speed. On July 6, just 3 weeks ago, Alabama averaged 121 cases per day for the prior 7 days. Three weeks later, after recording 1,536 cases on Sunday, 1,403 on Monday and an astonishing 2,667 more this morning, the daily average is now 1,775 cases per day. Last year, it took over 3 ½ months for the State to make that same journey - surpassing 121 per day on April 3, 2020, and reaching 1,775 per day on July 17. This July, it took just 3 weeks.
There are now 1,083 patients in 103 reporting hospitals statewide (10.5 patients per hospital, compared to 2.35 per hospital on July 6). Over the last 3 weeks, hospitalizations in Alabama have climbed from 5 patients to over 22 patients per 100K population, 7th highest per capita rate in the nation. Florida leads the nation with 38 Covid patients per 100K, closely followed by Nevada (35), Arkansas (32), Missouri (29), Louisiana (28) and Mississippi (23). Texas, Oklahoma & Georgia are not far behind. When Alabama reached its high of 60 patients per 100K in the darkest days of January, the overwhelming majority were elderly or had underlying conditions. Now, 99% of those admitted to hospitals are unvaccinated, most of whom are young.
Yesterday, UAB Hospital reported treating 54 patients with active COVID-19, the highest number of patients since February. According to UAB’s Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, all 31 samples of Covid-19 examined by UAB researchers last week were the Delta strain, which is considered 50% more transmissible than Alpha (a/k/a U.K. variant), which in turn is 50% more transmissible than the original virus. An incident reported in Australia illustrates this point. Security cameras caught two people passing each other in a shopping mall, one of them unknowingly infected with Delta. The shoppers spoke to each other briefly, about 30 seconds, and the second person got infected. Transmission through this encounter was confirmed through genetic sequencing.
The Delta variant is especially pernicious in Alabama because the vaccination rate is so low. Michael Osterholm, a prominent infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said he and his team had reviewed Kaiser Family Foundation data and determined that about 100 million people in the U.S. have not been vaccinated nor have they had Covid-19. “That is more than enough human wood for this coronavirus forest fire to burn. And that’s going to happen,” he said. That situation seems unlikely to improve, considering the results of a recent A.P. poll finding that 80% of Americans who remain unvaccinated said they probably or definitely will not get the vaccine.
Intransigence among the unvaccinated is starting to wear thin in some places, as new vaccine mandates are being rolled out by the Veterans Administration to Houston Methodist Hospital to the Mayo Clinic. Public employees in New York City and the State of California will be required to get vaccinated or produce a weekly negative test result. More than 50 medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association, have signed a statement calling for all health care and long-term care employers to require vaccinations for their employees. A federal judge in Texas has upheld Houston Methodist’s vaccine requirement.
Alabama is one of five states to recently enact a law prohibiting any government agency, school or business from requiring a constituent, student, or customer, respectively, to be vaccinated. The law, however, does not expressly prohibit vaccination as a condition of employment. (The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has given guidance that employees can be required to get vaccinated). As cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to mount, that battle may become the next legal frontier.
For now, it’s time to put that mask back on indoors, even if you’ve been vaccinated. Yesterday, the CDC officially reversed its guidance on that point due to increased breakthrough infections with Delta. The totals:
7/14 -1,398
7/15 - 965
7/16 - 999
7/19 - 2,343
7/20 - 1,391
7/21 - 1,632
7/22 - 1,567
7/23 - 1,733
7/24 - 1,888
7/25 - 1,536
7/26 - 1,403
7/27 - 2,667
Thanks for presenting such a comprehensive picture about Covid 19 in Alabama. You do a great job in keeping us informed and I look forward to your newsletter as often as you publish it.
I wonder how long will it take for the FDA to officially approve the vaccines. I often hear from people who hesitate to get it, that part of their mistrust lies in the fact that these vaccines are not FDA approved. I’m just thinking of additional ways to disarm the objections of those who refuse to get the vaccine.
Thank you so much for this important information. I am so glad to get it this way since my Facebook account recently disappeared…very strange and frustrating. Your reports and insights are so helpful. And just when we thought it was winding down! 🤦♀️