Alabama capped a week of staggering coronavirus numbers with yet another record - it added more than 5,000 cases in one day for the first time ever on Friday. The state’s 7-day rolling average for new cases is climbing toward 4,000, and hospitals across Alabama continue to report record numbers of virus patients.
All this with Christmas Day less than a week away.
The Alabama Department of Public Health reported 26,908 new virus cases between Dec. 12 and Dec. 18 - the most ever reported in a week. The state has now reported at least 20,000 new cases for three consecutive weeks. Before this stretch, the state had never reported as many as 15,000 cases in a week.
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This week’s numbers, which were already high, were boosted by the state’s single worst day for new cases on Friday. ADPH reported 5,348 new cases Friday. Though that number did include 382 backlogged cases that were actually from between Dec. 10 and Dec. 13. Even without those backlogged cases, Friday’s total would be the highest ever recorded in Alabama.
It brought the state’s 7-day average for new cases to 3,844, another record. The state’s 7-day average is officially more than double the peak it reached back in July, when the state was in the midst of its first major virus surge.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
Friday’s backlog was the third one reported this week, and backlogs of this kind have been common in the last several weeks. But the backlogs this week only added around 1,300 cases to the tally, meaning the weekly total would still be a record even without the old cases.
Within Alabama, some of the hotspots that have helped fuel this latest outbreak are getting worse. Meanwhile, some others are cooling down, and a few new ones are popping up.
Jefferson County, the most populous county in Alabama and home to Birmingham, added nearly 1,000 cases on Friday alone. The 7-day average in Jefferson was already the highest in the state heading into this week, and it has gotten much worse. The average there increased by nearly 72 cases per day - the highest week-over-week increase in 7-day average of any county.
[Can’t see the map? Click here.]
Jefferson is now averaging 676 new cases per day. That’s around the same amount Alabama as a whole was averaging in late June.
But some counties saw some much-needed respite this week. Jackson County, which had seen the worst per capita outbreak in Alabama through the first two weeks of December, saw a big reduction in 7-day average this week. The same is true for Walker County, just northwest of Jefferson, and for Mobile County.
Many of the counties in north Alabama that had been fueling the state’s big virus surge in December saw their averages go down this week. But the state’s overall average went up. Jefferson County had something to do with that, but it wasn’t alone.
Madison County, home of Huntsville, saw its 7-day average for new cases go up by more than 40 cases per day. Madison County is now averaging 318 new cases per day, the second highest figure in the state.
Montgomery County also saw a big increase, as did Clarke County, in southwest Alabama. Clarke’s average of 56 new cases per day is now the highest per capita average in Alabama.
[Can’t see the map? Click here.]
The state’s outbreak appears to be shifting south. early this month, many of the counties with the worst per capita case numbers were in north Alabama - specifically in Jackson and Etowah counties. Many of those counties are still seeing high case numbers, but when controlling for population, no county currently has a worse average than Clarke, with 24 daily cases per 10,000 people.
And two of Clarke’s neighbors - Wilcox and Marengo - are second and third in the state on that list.
Alabama also reported 210 new coronavirus deaths this week. It’s the fourth time in five weeks the state has reported at least 200 virus deaths, though this week’s total is down from the two previous weeks.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
Five counties - Jefferson, Walker, Tuscaloosa, Morgan and Cullman - reported at least 10 virus deaths this week. Because of the way deaths are reported, some of those deaths happened earlier this year.
Already a lagging indicator, deaths often take weeks to be confirmed as a coronavirus death, and sometimes longer to enter the system. It’s not uncommon for a death to be added to the state’s tally that happened months earlier. Of the 42 deaths reported by the state on Friday, the earliest occurred in mid August. But the rest happened since Nov. 20, and only 35 of the 42 deaths currently have any date at all associated with them.
Meanwhile, the state’s hospitals reported more current virus patients than ever before this week, a continuation of a trend that’s been happening here since around Thanksgiving. The state reported 2,447 current virus inpatients in hospitals across the state Friday - a new record.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
The 7-day average for current inpatients also reached a new high of 2,332 on Friday, and hospitals all over Alabama are entering ‘uncharted territory,’ as they postpone surgeries and bring up nursing students to help meet the demand caused by the latest surge.
You can see how many cases and deaths each county added this week in the table below:
[Can’t see the table? Click here.]
Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.com, and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.
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December 19, 2020 at 09:00PM
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Alabama just saw worst day for new COVID cases, spread now double summer peak: Week in review - al.com
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