With COVID-19 hotspots scattered across north Alabama, the state recorded 3,390 new cases of the disease and 46 deaths, the state Department of Public Health reported Saturday.

It was the fifth consecutive day with more than 3,000 cases, pushing the totals for the pandemic to 267,390 cases and 3,877 deaths. Alabama is averaging 3,228 new cases a day over the past week, compared to 1,241 daily for the week ending Nov. 1.

The number of people in Alabama hospitals for treatment of the coronavirus also stood at a record level — 1,875 on Friday. That is up from 1,571 one week ago.

Jackson County (Scottsboro), in the northeast corner of the state, recorded 104 new cases in Saturday’s report, and it leads the state with 1,873 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks.
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Public health officials say Alabama could receive its first delivery of coronavirus vaccines by the end of this week.

Jefferson County Deputy Health Officer Dr. David Hicks on Friday said he expects vaccines from the drug company Pfizerto arrive on Friday, December 11.

If the vaccine is granted Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Alabama will receive about 41,000 doses. Those will be distributed at 16 vaccination sites at hospitals across the state, according to State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris. Frontline healthcare workers and some first responders will be given priority for the vaccine.

Harris said that rural areas, like southwest Alabama, will not receive the Pfizer vaccine during the initial phase. This is mainly because rural hospitals can’t accommodate the vaccine’s cold-chain requirements: the vaccine must be kept at -112 F. Read more.

The Thanksgiving holidays have passed and the leftover turkey remnants in the refrigerator have dwindled. But the after-effects of the holiday period are just now beginning when it comes to the COVID-19 virus, according to a top doctor with UAB.

Dr. Sarah Nafziger, co-chair of the school’s emergency management committee and a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, says that UAB Hospital is already seeing a continuing increase in the number of coronavirus patients, pushing current limits. But even more cases are likely to come through the doors in the next couple of weeks, if past results are any indication.

“We haven’t even begun to see those patients (from Thanksgiving) yet,” Nafziger said during a media teleconference Friday. “Those patients are not showing up at the hospital yet.”
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The state posted a record number of COVID-19 cases on Friday, along with the highest number of patients in hospitals with the disease, the Alabama Department of Public Health reported.

There were 3,840 new cases of the coronavirus listed in the agency’s daily report, bringing the total for the pandemic to 264,199. It was the fourth consecutive day with more than 3,000 cases and the most ever for a single day that did not include figures from previous days.

Jefferson County continued to show high numbers, with 594 cases, while Madison County had 306.
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Alabama added more than 3,000 cases of COVID-19 for the third day in a row, the state Department of Public Health reported Thursday.

The increase of 3,531 cases brought the state’s total to 260,359 since the pandemic began in March. Alabama has averaged 2,629 cases per day over the past week, up from an average of 2,292 a week ago.

The Health Department added 65 deaths in Thursday’s report raising the overall total to 3,776.
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Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, head of the UAB School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases, is not a person given to hyperbole. But as the numbers in the coronavirus pandemic rise at an alarming rate, Marrazzo resorted to terminology of a level she hasn’t used before. Speaking to reporters in a teleconference Tuesday morning, she said the situation is approaching levels that evoke “tidal wave imagery.”

The weekly BirminghamWatch analysis of the state’s COVID-19 data shows all of the major indicators of the disease continuing to rise sharply, giving a foundation for Marrazzo’s heightened concerns. Moving averages of daily positive cases are at record high levels, while the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients also has reached its highest level. The death toll also is rising rapidly. Read more.

Alabama recorded one of its worst days yet for the pandemic on Wednesday as the state Department of Public Health reported more than 3,000 new cases of COVID-19 and 73 deaths from the disease. The agency said the number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus also rose to its highest level to date.

The agency listed 3,928 new cases, but it said 706 of those were from the period of Nov. 23 to Nov. 29. After subtracting the older cases, there were 3,222 new cases over the past 24 hours. That was just shy of the record 3,302 new cases reported for Nov. 30.
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WBHM
Alabama will likely receive its first shipment of a COVID-19 vaccine in January, according to health care experts. It was previously predicted that Alabama would receive the vaccine in December. Read more.