September 3, 2021
Since my last letter on September 1, Alabama has witnessed 10,440 new Covid cases - 5,312 on Thursday and 5,128 more on Friday. The 7-day average since last Saturday is 4,551 cases per day, which easily eclipses the winter peak of 4,280 daily cases the week of January 4-10. Last Friday, the 7-day moving average was 4,029 cases per day. The previous Friday, the average stood at 4,231 per day. So, for the last 3 weeks, new daily cases have been fairly level, but that level has not fallen below the peak last January. According to Dr. Karen Landers of ADPH, approximately 25% of the new cases this week were children.
Alabama currently has 2,629 patients in 104 reporting hospitals, or 25.3 per hospital (a notable decline from 27 patients per hospital yesterday). The hospitalization rate has been steady since August 18 - ranging between 25 and 28 patients per hospital (i.e. 2,700 - 2,900 patients statewide). Like the daily case count, hospitalizations plateaued at a high level for 3 consecutive weeks, below the winter peak of 29.5 patients per hospital (3,080 patients overall). Approximately 85-90% of all hospitalizations since mid-August were people who were unvaccinated. The Alabama Hospital Association also reported that 56 current patients (2% of the total) are unvaccinated children.
Though hospitalizations have remained level, ICU care has never been more scarce. Yesterday, there were 120 more patients needing ICU care than the State’s hospitals could reasonably accommodate, forcing some to be treated in emergency rooms or hallway gurneys. It should not be surprising that deaths are on the rise - 64 on Friday, lifting the 7-day average to 37 deaths per day. That’s the highest death rate since early March, but it is much lower than the winter peak of 154 deaths per day between January 23-29.
So, daily cases well above the winter peak, hospitalizations a tick below, and deaths rising but still far below the winter peak. What should we make of this blizzard of statistics? To me, this is the best evidence that vaccinations work. They do exactly what they are supposed to do - i.e. to prevent severe cases that would put you in the hospital, or worse. Vaccines are not impenetrable shields - breakthrough infections do occur. To a nearly miraculous extent, however, they will keep you alive.
The quandary we face today is that children below the age of 12 are not currently eligible for this miraculous option. With the original Alpha strain of virus, children rarely developed severe cases, but there is growing evidence that Delta may behave differently. Indeed, a CDC study released today found that unvaccinated adolescents (age 12-18) were hospitalized at 10 times the rate of fully vaccinated adolescents. The study drew on hospital data from 14 states, between June 20 and July 31, when Delta became the dominant variant in the United States. Not only that - Dr. Landers reported yesterday that 6-10% of infected children exhibit symptoms of long Covid - namely, brain fog, extreme fatigue, difficulty sleeping, depression.
No question - the Delta variant is a nasty virus. That’s why news that 9,000 school-age children in Alabama tested positive last week should concern us all. That is double the number reported last week (4,237) and more than double the highest weekly number last year (3,352). It’s what you would expect considering that over half of Alabama’s schools started the year with mask-optional policies. Three weeks later, I am pleased to say that Alabama’s school children may have a fighting chance - according to Alabama’s superintendent of education, Dr. Eric Mackey, 90% of schools statewide now require masking. The totals:
8/22 - 3,315
8/23 - 2,588
8/24 - 3,701
8/25 - 4,086
8/26 - 4,998
8/27 - 6,207
8/28 - 5,016
8/29 - 3,433
8/30 - 3,072
8/31 - 5,206
9/1 - 4,691
9/2 - 5,312
9/2 - 5,128