Less than a week from Thanksgiving, Alabama’s coronavirus outlook has never seemed worse. The Alabama Department of Public Health reported more new coronavirus cases and more virus deaths in the week ending Nov. 20 than in any week since the pandemic began.
It was a week full of broken records. The 7-day average for new virus cases in Alabama reached 2,182 per day on Thursday, an all-time high. Alabama broke that record four times this week. The state reported 2,463 total new cases on Friday - the third consecutive day it reported at lease 2,400 new cases. That brought the weekly total up to 14,756 cases, far surpassing the previous record of 12,914 weekly cases set back 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 around 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, more accurate PCR tests required for confirmed cases, and faster, sometimes less accurate antigen tests used for probables.
[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, by 38 deaths.
But it’s unlikely all the deaths reported this week actually occurred recently, and it’s unclear exactly how many are old. The state reported on Nov. 11 it was beginning a process that would add older deaths to the system, and on Friday ADPH said that process is ongoing, and that this week’s totals were affected.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
According to date of death data from ADPH, only 146 of the deaths reported between Nov. 1 and Nov. 17 actually occurred in November. The rest were attributed to other dates earlier in the year, or haven’t been assigned a date yet. 400 of the 3,451 total deaths reported by ADPH don’t have dates assigned.
It sometimes takes weeks for deaths to be assigned a date, or for deaths to be reported at all.
While deaths are a lagging indicator, hospitalizations are not. And hospitalizations in Alabama also continue to rise - as they have done steadily since early October.
The state reported 1,329 people with the virus were currently being treated in Alabama hospitals on Friday, the most since mid-August. The 7-day average for current hospitalizations rose to 1,251, also the highest since August.
[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]
That’s still well short of the record seen here over the summer, when hospitalizations hovered between 1,500 and 1,600 for a little more than two weeks. But that previous spike in hospitalizations trailed a spike in new cases by about a week, and Alabama’s current spike in cases is even bigger.
The state also hasn’t increased testing much. Though the 7-day average for tests given is up slightly toward the end of this week, it’s not a significant jump, and Alabama’s positivity rate remains high at roughly 22 percent 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 all-time total.
No other county came close to Jefferson’s weekly total. Madison County, home of Huntsville, had the second highest total at 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 virus deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
Calhoun County, home of Anniston in east Alabama, added the second-most deaths this week with 36. That’s a big increase for a county that size - 32 percent of Calhoun’s 113 all-time virus deaths were reported this week.
You can see how many new and total virus cases and deaths each county has 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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November 21, 2020 at 08:30PM
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Alabama just had its worst week for coronavirus since the pandemic began - AL.com
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