November 17, 2020 - Look Behind the Headline
Look Behind the Headline
November 17, 2020
Today’s data illustrate why it’s important to look beyond the headline number - 1,616 reported cases (incl. 387 probables) - to get a complete picture of our State’s struggle against the coronavirus. On the one hand, we had 400 fewer cases than the State’s daily average for the last 7 days. On the other hand, we had double the number of cases reported just 2 weeks ago…. Even more importantly, all the other data are moving in the wrong direction.
As I have said before, Alabama simply does not test enough. For example, ADPH reported just 6,943 daily tests today, which is 20% below our 7-day moving average. Our 7-day average is, in turn, the lowest or second lowest state average of daily tests in the entire United States. Our single-day positivity rate is 23.3% (positivity rate = positive cases divided by tests), which contributes to our extremely high 23% positivity rate for the last 7 days.
Why is it important to do more testing? Because, to do otherwise means we will detect only the most serious cases and will fail to identify those cases with minor symptoms or no symptoms that are often the most contagious. The fact is, we don’t really know how many cases Alabama had today; we only know there were 1,616 reported cases. Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to fighting a pandemic.
Compare Alabama to our neighboring state of Tennessee, which has a population of 6.8 million (Alabama’s population is 4.9 million). Over the last week, Tennessee has averaged 438 cases per 100K population, compared to Alabama’s 294 cases per 100K. Over the same period, Tennessee has averaged almost 3 times as many tests per capita as Alabama. As a result, even though Tennessee has seen more cases than Alabama, its positivity rate is 13% for the last 7 days, while Alabama’s rate is over 23%. In other words, Alabama has far more cases than it realizes, and it is therefore unable to contain them.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations in our State continue to climb, with 1,289 reported patients in 106 hospitals, an increase of 61 patients from yesterday’s revised figure of 1,228. The Huntsville Hospital Health System recently reported 214 patients, which nearly matches its peak of 228 patients during the last week of July. Cullman Regional reported a record 51 patients. Again, hospitalizations lag new cases, so we can expect more patients in coming days. Here are the totals:
11/4 - 1848
11/5 - 1381
11/6 - 1556
11/7 - 1768
11/8 - 1205
11/9 - 1190
11/10 - 1720
11/11 - 2070
11/12- 2000
11/13 - 2980
11/14 - 2226
11/15 - 1979
11/16 - 1410
11/17 - 1616
With 280 new cases today, Jefferson County has averaged 284 cases per day for each of the last 7 days - a new individual record.