June 25, 2020 - Bad Day for the Old Confederacy
Bad Day for the Old Confederacy
June 25, 2020
Alabama shattered its record for new cases when it reported 1,142 today. Breaking the prior record of 1,041, set on June 14, the new number represents an almost three-fold increase in three days. After two straight days of 300+ increases, this news was not unexpected. The 7-day positivity rate soared to 10.57%, well above what it must be for the state to shake New York’s 14-day quarantine.
What is not yet known is what this spike will do to hospitalization rates and, ultimately, deaths. That’s because hospitalizations will lag new cases by up to a week and deaths will lag hospitalizations by longer than that. Although “only” 5 deaths were reported today, the people who died were likely counted among the newly reported cases many days, if not weeks, ago.
Likewise, 45 new hospitalizations were reported today, compared to 46 yesterday and 50 the day before that. Our rate of new hospitalizations has reached a plateau but it is a very high plateau. Never before have we seen three days that produced 140 new hospitalizations. This is particularly ominous, coming at a time when our 7-day average of hospitalizations is already at a record high 680 … and we haven’t even begun to see the hospitalizations that will be produced by these last three days of record cases.
We do not know if this blizzard of new cases is being driven by higher infection rates among young people. If so, those cases tend to have a lower mortality rate, but that is no reason to celebrate. After all, young people also have mothers and fathers, grandparents and siblings. They typically spread this deadly virus more rapidly among friends and family, even if their own cases tend to have less severe outcomes.
Finally, it certainly was a bad day for the Old Confederacy. Of the original 11 Confederate states, 7 exceeded 1,000 daily cases today, including FL, TX, GA, NC, SC, AL and MS (Florida and Texas exceed the 5,000 milestone). Louisiana barely missed the 1,000 level when it reported 919 cases. Tennessee topped 800, leaving only Arkansas and Virginia -- and Arkansas (687) barely missed the state record of 731. Whoever coined the phrase, “The South shall rise again” surely didn’t have this in mind.
Here are the totals:
6/12 - 865
6/13 - 891
6/14 - 1,041
6/15 - 657
6/16 - 640
6/17 - 400
6/18 - 894
6/19 - 796
6/20 - 547
6/21 - 472
6/22 - 433
6/23 - 643
6/24 - 967
6/25 - 1,142
Jefferson Co. hit 142 cases, nearly doubling its own record. Marshall Co. followed with 83 cases, then Tuscaloosa Co. with 74 and Montgomery Co. with 73. Madison Co. set a new individual record with 65 cases.