September 7, 2021
Labor Day Weekend 2021 is now behind us and Alabama’s Covid data since Friday are in the books. Not surprisingly, the 9,148 new cases reported for the last 3 days - Saturday through Monday - compare favorably to 11,521 cases for the same three days last week. Today’s number (collected on Labor Day) is 2,672. However, it is quite likely that spotty holiday reporting played heavily into the numbers.
Last Friday, Alabama’s hospitalization rate dipped to 25.3 patients per reporting hospital (2,629 in 104 hospitals). By Monday, however, it rose again to 27.2 patients per hospital (2,777 in 102 hospitals, 53 of whom are children) - not a promising sign. As of Monday, there were 1,712 patients requiring ICU care and only 1,531 staffed ICU beds in the State - 52% of all such ICU patients were struggling with Covid.
In a press briefing last Thursday, Dr. Scott Harris expressed optimism about rising vaccinations, noting we were no longer last in the percentage of fully vaccinated residents - ahead of Mississippi. Sadly, that did not last long, as Mississippi’s vaccination rate is now higher than ours. In the last 7 days, an average of 19.5K doses per day were given in Alabama, a 19% decline compared to the prior week. A weirdly giddy headline graced al.com last week: “Alabama COVID vaccination rate surges ahead of Mississippi. Watch out, Wyoming.” It seems like an odd way to celebrate a vaccination rate (39.1%) that trails Cambodia (55%), Panama (45%) and Croatia (40%). Must we be reminded that if Alabama were a country, our vaccination rate would fall roughly between Sri Lanka (39%) and Cuba (36%)?
At noon today, UAB will join with the Alabama Hospital Association in observing a statewide moment of silence to remember the 12,416 Alabamians lost to Covid, their families and the healthcare workers caring for us all. It is clear that the strain on our healthcare workers has reached a breaking point. The strain increasingly impacts everyone, even vaccinated people who are not infected, but need other care. What is worrisome is not only the influx of Covid patients but the growing loss of trained health professionals to exhaustion and demoralization, as they care for dying young and middle-aged patients who have refused vaccines. The NY Times reported last week that Mississippi has 2,000 fewer nurses working in its hospitals than it had on January 1 of this year. In the hard-hit Deep South, there is increasing reliance on traveling nurses and emergency medical teams supplied by the federal government, but they cannot fully compensate for hospital systems on the verge of collapse.
There is a striking disconnect between the growing despair inside hospitals, especially in the South, and the oblivious world outside them. Fewer than 100,000 people work inside Alabama’s hospitals - 2% of the population - and yet, they are left to fight this war against Covid largely alone and without the support of almost two-thirds of the population who refuse to take a vaccine. It reminds me of the sacrifices that are expected from the 1% of Americans who serve in the active military …. But, unlike our soldiers and sailors, our courageous healthcare professionals are not adequately supported and often taken for granted.
Delta has increased the chances of getting Covid for almost everyone, but if you’re vaccinated, your chances remain extremely small. For the vaccinated, Covid resembles the flu and usually a mild one. For the unvaccinated, of course, the chances of infection are far higher and the chances of hospitalization are higher still (for example, 89% of UAB’s current Covid patients are unvaccinated). If the world, as we know it, is to ever return to normal, we must learn to live with Covid like it is the flu. To reach that point, the answer is obvious. We must do whatever it takes, including mandates of every variety, to get people vaccinated. “Personal choice” is not an option when it wrecks our healthcare system and kills over 660,000, as it has so far in the United States. The totals:
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
9/3 - 5,128
9/4 - 4,420
9/5 - 2,162
9/6 - 2,566
9/7 - 2,672