June 23, 2021
Have you ever spent a Labor Day weekend at Gulf Shores? The sky is clear and the late summer sun hangs in the air. Yet, a Category 3 hurricane churns in the Gulf near Cuba and forecasters say it might be time to evacuate. That’s what the pandemic feels like in Alabama right now.
On Monday, ADPH reported 356 new cases on Monday (covering 3 days). There were 118 more cases reported yesterday and 191 more today, leading to a 7-day moving average of 143 new cases per day, which represents a 27% decline compared to the prior week. ADPH also reported 193 patients in 108 hospitals statewide (1.79 patients per hospital), a 9.5% decline in hospitalizations. The 7-day moving average positivity rate in Alabama is 4.2%. Compared to the last 12 months, those statistics seem like a warm summer day.
On the other hand, Hurricane Delta left the Florida Keys and has turned north. Alabama has reported 13 cases of the Delta variant so far, but it accounts for more than 20% of new cases in the United States, having doubled its percentage in the last 2 weeks, and researchers predict that Delta will become the dominant strain in the next 2 to 3 weeks. In Britain, daily cases have increased fivefold in the last month due to Delta - from around 1,500 to 9,200 per day - while daily hospitalizations have doubled from around 100 to 200 per day. A recent Scottish study found that people infected by Delta were roughly twice as likely to be hospitalized as those infected with Alpha.
The Delta variant is unlikely to pose much risk to people who have been fully vaccinated, experts say. Two doses of the Pfizer vaccine are reportedly 88% effective against Delta, while viral vaccines, like J&J and AstraZeneca, are reportedly 60% effective, better than the average flu vaccine.
So, what advice do you give to your invincible adolescent son who refuses to get vaccinated? I would begin with this: adolescents and young adults now constitute 33% of all new Covid cases. Since the start of the pandemic, 7.7 million persons in the 12 to 29 age group have become infected, resulting in 2,767 deaths. More than 300 of those deaths have occurred since April 1 of this year.
Then, you might mention this: an analysis of medical records from nearly 2 million people who previously tested positive shows that 1 in 4 reported symptoms they didn’t have before, including nerve and muscle pain, fatigue and foggy brain. Covid affects virtually every organ, leaving previously healthy people with new issues, such as exercise intolerance, lack of concentration and hair loss, as well as chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease. A new report, not yet peer-reviewed, found that those recovered from both mild and severe coronavirus are more likely to have irreversible loss of brain tissue.
In other news, some of you have asked me about mixing doses of an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer/Moderna) with a viral vaccine (J&J/AstraZeneca). The NY Times reported today that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has done just that - an initial AZ shot followed by a Moderna shot. Apparently, the combination of one AstraZeneca shot followed by the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine has become standard practice in Germany for people under 60 (Merkel is 67 years old). Currently, 52% of the German population has received at least one dose and Chancellor Merkel has joined the 32% of Germans who are fully vaccinated. The totals:
6/8 - 216
6/9 - 305
6/10 - 290
6/11 - 188
6/14 - 550
6/15 - 290
6/16 - 160
6/17 - 152
6/18 - 182
6/21 - 356
6/22 - 118
6/23 - 191
Frank--Have I got this right. Alabama has 20% of all Delta cases nationally? And our total is only 13? So, nationally, only 65+ cases?