The Alabama Department of Public Health added 161 deaths to the state’s COVID-19 toll on Saturday, doubling the aveage daily count during the past week.

Though the death rate continued to grow, the average number of cases of the coronavirus in Alabama was down by 577 a day from a week earlier.

There have been 13,209 coronavirus deaths in Alabama since the pandemic began in March 2020. The state has added an average of 86 deaths a day over the past week, compared to the 7-day average of 37 the previous Saturday. There is a delay of up to two weeks in the reporting and verification of deaths by the Health Department.

The state has recorded 768,301 cases of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic, including 3,462 in Saturday’s update. There has been an average of 3,213 new cases a day over the past week, compared to 3,790 for the previous Saturday.

The number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus also has dropped over the past week, from 2,471 last weekend to 2,170 on Friday.

State Health Officer Scott Harris noted during a media briefing that while the drop in the number of coronavirus patients was welcomed, “There are two ways people leave the hospital, and one of them is not good.”