Alabama may finally be getting some good news in its ongoing struggle with the coronavirus.
As the state continues the difficult task of vaccinating its residents, COVID case numbers throughout most of Alabama plummeted this week. It’s a trend that’s been going on for a while - new cases peaked early in 2021 and have steadily decreased since. This week, Alabama posted its lowest weekly new case count since early November.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
The Alabama Department of Public Health reported 13,737 new cases during the week ending Feb. 5. That’s the lowest number since November 13, when Alabama reported 12,903 new cases. This week’s case total is also less than half the total reported just a month ago, when the state reported more than 28,500 cases to start 2021.
Alabama’s rolling 7-day average for new cases dipped below 2,000 for the first time since Nov. 15 on Friday, but there might be a catch.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
Friday’s low average for new cases includes a data delay from last Saturday, when the state’s coronavirus numbers didn’t update. The zero cases reported that day helped bring Alabama’s cases down. It’s possible the data reported over the next few days included the cases that would have been reported on Saturday, though, which would mean Friday’s low total would be accurate.
Either way, new cases have been falling steadily here since the huge influx that followed the Christmas and New Years holidays. And some counties have cooled off more than others.
[Can’t see the map? Click here.]
Jefferson County, the most populous county in the state and home to Birmingham, has had the worst outbreak in the state through 2021 in terms of total cases. That’s still true, but over the last week Jefferson saw its 7-day average drop by 25 percent, or around 84 daily cases. As of Friday the 7-day average in Jefferson was 252 cases per day - the lowest that number has been since Nov. 12.
In terms of percent change, no county saw a bigger decline week-over-week than Washington, a small county just north of Mobile in south Alabama. The 7-day average for new cases there dropped by 67 percent, down from nine cases per day last Friday to just three per day this week.
But it’s not all good news. A handful of counties saw their 7-day averages go up this week. Coosa County, a sparsely populated county in central Alabama, saw a 43 percent increase in cases - though the 7-day average there is still relatively low at just 8.6 cases per day.
Alabama also reported another 883 coronavirus deaths this week. That’s actually down slightly from last week, when the state set a record with more than 1,000 reported virus deaths. But the 883 reported this week is the second most ever reported, and includes a record for deaths reported in a single day. ADPH reported 309 new deaths on Wednesday.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
The four highest weekly death totals ever reported have come in the past four weeks, and roughly 43 percent of all coronavirus deaths ever reported in Alabama have come in 2021.
Deaths are a lagging indicator, and it often takes weeks for new deaths to appear in the numbers. Many of the deaths reported this week happened a while ago, during the surge in cases and hospitalizations seen in December and early January. Hospitalizations peaked during that time, and data shows a strong correlation between coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths.
Date-of-death data shows the average death reported this week was about 34 days old.
There have now been 8,449 virus deaths reported in Alabama since the pandemic began. More than 1,200 of those came in Jefferson County, which has seen by far the highest death count of any county. There are eight Alabama counties that have had fewer reported virus cases since the pandemic began than Jefferson has had virus deaths.
Mobile County has seen 639 virus deaths since last March, second most in the state and about half as many as Jefferson.
You can see how many cases and deaths each county has added this week, and throughout the pandemic, 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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February 06, 2021 at 08:30PM
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Alabama posts lowest coronavirus case numbers in months: Week in review - AL.com
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