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Alabama added a record 3,928 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, but the Alabama Department of Public Health reports that 706 of them are old. But even without those old cases, the state added more than 3,000 cases overnight – a number that would have been a record for new cases in a day without a backlog.
This is the second day in a row that the state has included older cases in its daily update, which comes when one of the state’s many labs is slow to share its numbers with ADPH. Wednesday’s backlog includes cases confirmed between November 23 and November 29.
For reference, Alabama was breaking records for an average of 7 days at that time, and it now appears that even those high numbers may have been artificially low.
Back-to-back arrears have exploded the state’s 7-day average for new cases – the number now stands at 2,501 new cases per day, an artificially high number.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
ADPH has a page on its coronavirus dashboard that shows a 7-day average by infectious date, but it is best used as a tool to examine the state’s history with the virus, not where it is the fight today.
Even without Wednesday’s backlog, Alabama is adding more cases now than at any time since the start of the pandemic. The state’s positivity rate is currently 35% – among the highest in the country. And hospitals are filling up. On Tuesday, ADPH reported that a record 1,785 coronavirus patients were being treated in hospitals in Alabama.
The state’s 7-day average for patients currently hospitalized with the virus rose to 1,593 on Tuesday, a new high.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
The state also reported 73 new virus deaths on Wednesday, about 20 of which have occurred since the start of November, although that number is likely to rise. It can take weeks, or even longer, for a date to become associated with viral death. Wednesday’s death bundle also includes at least one from as far back as April.
Where are the cases?
Jefferson County, the state’s most populous county and seat of Birmingham, continues to add the most cases in Alabama. A record 688 new cases were reported there on Wednesday, although it is not known how many, if any, were due to the backlog of data. Jefferson County’s 7-day average for new cases crossed 400 for the first time on Wednesday and now stands at 403.
No other county was close to the number of cases in Jefferson on Wednesday, but three added more than 200 cases. Tuscaloosa added 225; Etowah, home of Gadsden, added 213; and Madison, home of Huntsville, added 202.
Bibb County, a small county just south of Birmingham, added 20 new deaths to its tally on Wednesday, more than half of its total since the start of the pandemic. It is not known when these deaths actually occurred. Barbour County in southeast Alabama reported 18 deaths on Wednesday – also more than half of the total.
You can see the number of cases and deaths reported by each county on Wednesday – and since March – in the table below:
[Can’t see the table? Click here.]
Do you have an idea for a data story on Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at [email protected]and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.
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