UAB researchers said today that they will begin Phase II human trials next month on a vaccine for COVID-19 developed by Oxford University with pharmaceutical giant AstroZeneca. About 500 participants will receive the vaccine locally as part of a nationwide trial of 33,000 participants. Read more.
Before Tuesday’s Jefferson County Commission committee meeting, Joe Knight asked fellow commissioner Steve Ammons how he felt. When Ammons, who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, said he felt fine, Knight quipped, “You don’t look very good.” Today, as Ammons again watched the commission meeting in Bessemer online from home, Knight appealed to everyone to wear a mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. Read more.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues throughout the nation, Alabama’s numbers in new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and positivity rates are reaching new highs — and causing some states to suggest or mandate that people who visit Alabama undergo a quarantine upon return. In BirminghamWatch’s weekly analysis of data reported by the Alabama Department of Public Health, the 7-day moving average of new cases for the period ending July 22 has jumped to 1,741.14 per day. That’s up by 55 cases per day. Earlier in the week, the 7-day average set a new record of 1,851. The longer-term 14-day moving average stands at a record high of 1,713.50. The state has a total of 70,413 positive cases, a hike of 12,188 cases from seven days beforehand. The total is doubling about every 23 days, and Alabama remains on track to reach 100,000 positive cases on or about Aug. 3. Read more.
UPDATED — Dr. Mark Sullivan announced in a Wednesday press conference that all Birmingham City Schools would be starting the school year virtually on Aug. 24. Sullivan, the interim superintendent for BCS, made the announcement with Birmingham Board of Education members. All learning will be online for the first nine-week grading period. BCS will evaluate the safety of returning to in-person learning after that. “This decision was not made lightly, but at this juncture I believe it is our best option to assure the quality of education that we have for our students and to maintain a safe, nurturing environment for all of our students,” Sullivan said. Read more.
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have created the first culturally based protocol for patients facing end-of-life care.
A plan to build a FedEx Ground distribution facility on Lakeshore Parkway was unveiled at the Jefferson County Commission committee meeting Tuesday. The plan, previously known as Project Fish, is for an approximately 290,000-square-foot distribution facility that will be constructed on a 46.01-acre site off Lakeshore Parkway. Bradley attorney Trey Hill said that about 70% of the site is in the corporate limits of the city of Birmingham and 30% in the city of Bessemer. Read more.
This past week, 1,700 new individuals per day have been tested for the coronavirus in Jefferson County, with an average of 278 people a day testing positive and two a day dying. Those numbers give the county a positivity rate that tops 15%, the highest of any one week so far during the pandemic, county Health Officer Dr. Mark Wilson said in a briefing Tuesday. Hospitals in Jefferson County are caring for 275 patients with the virus; 110 of those are in intensive care units and 52 on ventilators, Wilson said. Read more.
Despite delays in the city’s overall operating budget, the Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to fund the Birmingham-Jefferson Country Transit Authority through the end of 2020. The city will pay the BJCTA $5 million dollars, divided into two quarterly installments of $2.5 million, “to make sure there’s no disruption in service at all” as the city enters for its months-long budget negotiations, Mayor Randall Woodfin said. Councilor Steven Hoyt protested, saying the move was tantamount to cutting BJCTA funding in half, even as other councilors said the allocation was for only part of the year, and the BJCTA also would be included in the final budget when it is passed. Read more.
Absentee voting rules that were in place to lower the risk of spreading the coronavirus during the July 14 runoff have been extended to cover the Aug. 25 municipal elections and the Nov. 3 general election. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill announced the change in a statement Monday. Read more.
As part of The Legacy of Race series, BirminghamWatch looked into how race affects health and health care. What we found turned into a series of stories on its own. Historically Black neighborhoods have some of the lowest life expectancies and highest rates of disabilities and infant mortality in Jefferson County, in line with national trends. Poorer health is a result of several factors. Rural and poorer areas across the state lack easy access to healthy foods and to adequate health care facilities. People who live there may lack the money, insurance or transportation to seek health care when illnesses are manageable. When they do get to the doctor, most of those doctors are white and from completely different cultural backgrounds, making it hard to build trust. When added to other factors such as poorer areas also having more environmental pollution, fewer sidewalks and fewer parks to encourage exercise, the result is more health problems and lower life expectancy rates. Revisit the BirminghamWatch stories that explored these areas: ZIP Code, Race Predict Lifelong Health Inequities Access to Treatment, Insurance Isn’t Colorblind Black Doctors Have Been Rare, but a Local Physician’s Experience May Point the Way Toward Building Numbers Being the Target of Racism Can Make You Physically Sick, Research Shows
