Virginia Martin

Committee Approves Anti-COVID Vaccine Mandate Bills, Move to Senate

MONTGOMERY — Two bills opposing the COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal workers and large companies got Senate committee approval on Monday and now move to the full Senate. They could get votes there Tuesday. While Republican supporters say they know the federal mandate issue will have to be settled in court, they said the Legislature needs to act, too. So far, 12 anti-vaccine mandate bills have been filed in this special session, including five filed in the House despite Speaker Mac McCutcheon’s statement last week that this special session on redistricting isn’t the place to handle the issue. Read more.

Fans of Legion Field Are Concerned About Its Future

Birmingham this past weekend hosted the 80th Magic City Classic, the football game between Alabama State and Alabama A&M universities. Since 1946, it’s taken place at Legion Field, the nearly 100-year-old stadium that stands tall in the Graymont neighborhood. Once revered as the “Football Capital of the South,” Legion Field has lost some of its luster in the past 15 years. Many of the games that once took place at the stadium have left. Now with the $200 million Protective Stadium downtown, some people aren’t sure what’s going to happen with Legion Field. Jill Rogers, who has a lot of connections to the Smithfield area, said that Legion Field should remain in its place. “I don’t think we should get rid of the Legion field completely, either build a new stadium or gut it out and do whatever’s cost-effective,” she said. The city of Birmingham has budgeted more than $2 million to make capital improvements to Legion Field this year. Read more.

NewsMatch 2021 Offers Chance to Double Donations

The Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism joins more than 300 nonprofit newsrooms as participants in the national NewsMatch 2021 campaign. Gifts to BirminghamWatch between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2021, have the chance to be part of a one-to-one match, supported by national foundations that understand the value of fact-based, nonpartisan, independent journalism. Read more.

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Staring Death in the Face – Voluntarily

Reporters witness more death than they want to, be it war, disaster, disease, crime or accidents. It’s a whole different jolt to the conscience, though, when a death is scheduled and government sanctioned. Members of the media are standard witnesses whenever a state – at least in this country – carries out a death penalty. This was in the headlines in Alabama 10 days ago when state news organizations unsuccessfully protested a decision by the state Department of Corrections to allow only one media witness to the lethal injection of an inmate. The DOC cited pandemic safety measures. The media’s interest in attending such events in numbers isn’t because they want a sensationalistic headline. Rather, it’s a watchdog role. “We are there to observe and report on the most powerful thing the state can do to a person,” said Kent Faulk, the managing producer for state news for the Alabama Media Group and a former colleague of mine. “We need to make sure they are held accountable, doing things the way they are supposed to.” Read more.

Why Nearly $910 Million Meant to Prevent Evictions in Gulf States Has Been Left Unspent

New data shows about $910 million meant to prevent evictions had yet to be used by the end of September in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Read more.

Lawmakers Begin Special Session

MONTGOMERY — As the gavels sounded to bring the Alabama Legislature into special session Thursday, many lawmakers were getting a first detailed look at how their districts would be redrawn following the 2020 census. Some are happy with the changes so far, some are not, and many are not seeking reelection to begin with. Ready or not, the new maps for State House and Senate, Congress and state school board have now been introduced to begin their journey through the legislative process. Read more.

Vaccinated Jefferson County, You Can Put Away Your Masks!

Let’s see that smile, Jefferson County. As of Tuesday, the county has been classified as having a moderate rate of transmission of COVID-19 based on CDC guidelines, meaning persons who are fully vaccinated need not wear a mask in public, indoor settings. The move to drop the classification from substantial reflects two main factors: the total number of new cases per 100,000 persons in the past seven days and the percentage of COVID nucleic acid amplification tests that have been positive over the past seven days, said Dr. Wesley Willeford, medical director of Disease Control for the Jefferson County Department of Health. Willeford said Thursday that moderate transmission means, “We would be seeing between 10-49.99 new cases of Covid per 100,000 persons in the past seven days and our percent positive would be between 5-7.99%.” Willeford said Jefferson County currently has a 4.1% positivity rate for COVID-19 cases and 45.1 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 persons. The no mask requirement in public indoor settings comes through guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But it does not apply to those who have not yet been vaccinated. Another caveat from the CDC is that persons who may be at higher risk for bad outcomes related to COVID-19 may still benefit from wearing a mask. Willeford describes those persons as older than 65 or who have weakened immune systems or other high-risk conditions. Read more.

Benefits of Vaccines for Kids 5-11 Far Outweigh Risks, UAB Doc Says

The benefits of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, which is slated to go to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval next week, far outweigh its risk to children, said Dr. David Kimberlin, co-director of UAB and Children's of Alabama's pediatrics division. He called his press conference Wednesday the most upbeat one in months, saying the delta variant of COVID-19 has receded. But the doctor warned that if another virus variant surfaces, the public should increase preventative measures. Kimberlin said vaccine data given Tuesday by an external advisory board to the FDA about the safety of vaccines for ages 5 to 11 is “incontrovertible.” Read more.

Legislature Meets Thursday for Redistricting Special Session

MONTGOMERY — The Alabama Legislature convenes Thursday for the start of a special session to approve new voting district maps and appropriate another $80 million of federal pandemic relief funds. Both chambers will gavel into order at 4 p.m. as called by Gov. Kay Ivey. Committee meetings will begin Friday. Read more.

Alabama’s COVID Deaths at Lowest Level Since August

The number of deaths in Alabama that are attributed to the COVID-19 virus has finally started to decrease in earnest, after averaging more than 100 per day as recently as a month ago. In BirminghamWatch’s periodic analysis of the state’s pandemic data, the 7-day moving average of deaths dropped into the teens Wednesday, now standing at 17.29 per day. The longer term 14-day average is still roughly double that number, checking in at 32.29, but is also in a decline. Both averages were at 100 or more in the latter part of September as the delta-variant surge swept through Alabama. As has been the case during the pandemic, deaths have lagged new COVID cases by about three to six weeks. The peak of the 7-day case average was reached on Sept. 1, while the peak of the deaths average came on Sept. 23. This follows the pattern of the original alpha-variant surge in December through February. Hospitalizations of COVID patients continues its steady decrease, with the Alabama Hospital Association reporting 482 inpatients as of Tuesday. Read more.