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Within a week of Thanksgiving, the outlook for the coronavirus in Alabama has never looked worse. The Alabama Department of Public Health reported more new cases of the coronavirus and more virus deaths in the week ending November 20 than in any week since the start of the pandemic .
It was a week full of broken records. The 7-day average of new cases of the virus in Alabama reached 2,182 per day on Thursday, a record high. Alabama broke that record four times this week. The state reported 2,463 new cases in total on Friday – the third day in a row, it reported 2,400 new cases to the lease. That brought the weekly total to 14,756 cases, far exceeding the previous record of 12,914 weekly cases set in July.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
Alabama’s 7-day average actually fell on Friday, despite the addition of 2,400 cases, and now stands at 2,108. That includes an average of 1,590 confirmed cases per day and about 518 probable cases.
The main difference between confirmed and probable cases at this point in Alabama is the test used to find the case, with slower and more precise PCR tests required for confirmed cases, and faster and sometimes less precise antigen tests used for the probable.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
The state also reported 220 coronavirus deaths this week – a new record – and the first time the state has reported at least 200 deaths in a week. It broke the previous record for new reported deaths, set last week, of 38 deaths.
But it’s unlikely that all of the deaths reported this week actually happened recently, and it’s unclear how many are old. The state reported on Nov. 11 that it was starting a process that would add older deaths to the system, and on Friday ADPH said that process was underway and that week’s totals were affected.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
According to ADPH data on date of death, only 146 of the deaths reported between November 1 and November 17 actually occurred in November. The remainder was assigned to other dates earlier in the year, or has not yet been given a date. 400 of the 3451 total deaths reported by ADPH do not have dates assigned.
Sometimes it takes weeks for deaths to be assigned a date, or for deaths to be reported.
While deaths are a lagging indicator, hospitalizations are not. And hospitalizations in Alabama also continue to rise – as they have been doing steadily since early October.
The state reported that 1,329 people with the virus are currently being treated in hospitals in Alabama on Friday, the highest number since mid-August. The seven-day average for current hospitalizations rose to 1,251, also the highest since August.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
This is still far from the record observed here this summer, when hospitalizations hovered between 1,500 and 1,600 for a little over two weeks. But that previous spike in hospitalizations resulted in a spike in new cases of about a week, and the current spike in Alabama cases is even greater.
The state hasn’t increased testing much either. While the 7-day average for the tests administered is up slightly towards the end of this week, it’s not a significant jump, and Alabama’s positivity rate remains high with around 22% of tests coming back positive. for COVID-19.
Where are the new cases?
Jefferson County, the most populous county in the state, continues to add by far the most cases of any county in Alabama. It added 2,362 new cases this week, bringing its total this year to 29,626 – about 13 percent of the state’s historic total.
No other county came close to Jefferson’s weekly total. Madison County, home of Huntsville, recorded the second-highest total with 956 cases this week. Mobile County added 771 and Shelby County, just south of Jefferson, added 745.
Jefferson County also added the most deaths this week with 37. It now has 491 deaths from the virus since the start of the pandemic.
Calhoun County, home of Anniston in eastern Alabama, added the second-highest death toll this week with 36. That’s a big increase for a county this size – 32 percent of 113 Calhoun virus deaths were reported this week.
You can see the number of new cases and deaths of the virus in each county 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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