June 5, 2021
After my last letter to you on Wednesday, Alabama endured 2 successive days of high new daily cases - 430 on Thursday and 557 more on Friday. The 7-day moving average through Friday is 311 cases per day (ADPH did not report on Saturday). That is a 26% increase in new daily cases compared to the prior week. In contrast, for the same period, the national average of new daily cases declined 30% compared to the prior week.
Mercifully, despite the State’s increased infection rate, our Covid-related hospitalization rate actually fell 10.8% compared to the prior week. As of Friday, there were 237 patients in 101 reporting hospitals, a rate of 2.35 patients per hospital, which is an 8% decline compared to the prior week. My initial instinct was that most of the new cases must involve younger people with milder cases. But, a new study released by the CDC yesterday casts doubt on the conclusion that younger patients necessarily mean milder cases.
The nationwide study, conducted in March and April of 2021, revealed that hospitalizations among adolescents aged 12-17 peaked at 2.1 per 100K in early January, declined to 0.6 per 100K in mid-March and then rose to 1.3 in April. Among hospitalized adolescents, nearly 1/3 required intensive care unit admission, and 5% required invasive mechanical ventilation; no associated deaths occurred. In an interview, CDC chief Rachel Walensky was startled by the study’s finding that so many adolescents were admitted to ICU’s, prompting her to plead for adolescents to get vaccinated. So far, in Alabama, only 5% of adolescents aged 12-17 have been vaccinated, lowest in the nation and less than 1/5 of the 26% national average (according to the NY Times).
For whatever reason, the administration of vaccinations in Alabama has practically disappeared. In the last week, an average of only 1,800 doses per day were administered, a 79% decrease compared to the prior week. On Thursday of this week, there were only 412 doses administered statewide. At this point, at least one dose has been given to 1,772,245 Alabamians, covering 42.3% of the eligible 12 and older population and 36.1% of the State’s entire population. About 1,440,289 people have been fully vaccinated, which represents 29.4% of the State’s entire population.
So, while Alabama’s cases are not declining as much as in other states, they have remained relatively stable. It’s not clear why that would be the case in light of our extremely low vaccination rate. Mississippi’s Governor Tate Reeves responded to a similar question asked by a reporter, suggesting that his state’s high natural infection rate may account for higher immunities in the population than can be explained by vaccinations alone. Maybe that’s part of it, yet it seems clear we are playing with fire by failing to convince our residents to get vaccinated. There must be creative ways to incentivize more vaccinations in this state - how about free tickets to the Iron Bowl? The totals:
5/22 - 255
5/23 - 196
5/24 - 132
5/25 - 306
5/26 - 269
5/27 - 346
5/28 - 228
6/1 - 640
6/2 - 553
6/3 - 430
6/4 - 557