November 13, 2023
The CDC has released its Covid-19 hospitalization data for the week of November 4 and I am pleased to report that we can all breathe a sigh of relief. After two weeks of rising numbers, the latest data show a significant decline. For the week, there were 199 confirmed hospital admissions throughout the State, which is 24% fewer than the week before. In terms of the per capita rate of hospitalizations for the week, Alabama’s 4.06 admissions per 100K rate places it in the bottom third of all states.
Last week, I indicated that I was most concerned about an area of the State that borders Tennessee - specifically, Madison and Limestone and Jackson counties. Those three counties still have the highest rate of hospital admissions in the State (13.8 admissions per 100K population), but that rate has declined from 17.2 per 100K the prior week.
In fact, the hospitalization rate during the week of November 4 was excellent throughout the Deep South region from Virginia to Texas. Every single Southern state ranked in the bottom half of all states in terms of per capita hospital admissions, ranging from a high of 4.46 admissions per 100K population in the Commonwealth of Virginia (28th in the nation) to a low of 2.51 per 100K in Georgia (50th in the nation). Indeed, in the 3 ½ years that I have been monitoring these Covid-19 statistics, I cannot recall a better overall performance by our region of the country than this one.
Given the relatively low incidence of severe infection in the South, it is not surprising that the national rate of new hospital admissions also declined by 8% this week to its lowest level since mid-August. The list of states with the highest per capita hospitalization rates reveals no discernible trend or pattern - South Dakota, Hawaii, West Virginia, Colorado and Kentucky.
As I mentioned last week, October and November are typically the months when the incidence of severe Covid infection tends to bottom out. As temperatures drop and families gather for the holidays, greater vigilance becomes all the more vital. For now, we should all be happy that the rise in hospitalizations appears to have reversed. Stay tuned.