As natural disasters and extreme weather become more frequent in the Gulf South, a new report hopes to be a road map to providing more climate-adapted housing. Read more.
At Sauta Cave anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 gray bats emerge to feast on insects. It’s thought to be the largest emergence of bats east of the Mississippi River, a spectacle that draws curious onlookers from across Alabama. Read more.
COVID-19 continues to trend downward in Alabama and this week is averaging about 90% fewer average daily cases and hospitalizations than when the state hit its all-time peak in January. Read more.
Industrial plants in Birmingham have polluted the air and land in its historic Black communities for over a century. In an epicenter of environmental injustice, officials continue to fail to right the wrongs plaguing the city’s north side. Read more.
Although many Alabamians seem to believe the pandemic is over, judging by the lack of masks being worn inside stores and other public buildings, the virus actually is affecting more Alabamians now than it did two years ago. On Thursday, the average of new cases being reported daily in the state was 2,099, according to New York Times data. Not only is that a 4% increase from two weeks ago, it’s a 41% increase over the average number of new cases reported the week ending Sept. 1, 2020, when the average of new daily cases reported was 1,482. But the most recent case numbers are at just less than half of what they were last year, when an average of 4,307 new cases had been reported daily in the week that ended Sept. 1. Read more.
The Jefferson County Department of Health is beginning to scale up its immunization efforts against monkeypox, under new guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. By next week, health department officials said it will begin offering intradermal injections of the Jynneos vaccine, a method that was granted emergency use authorization Wednesday by the FDA.
The latest strain of COVID-19 is more contagious than its ancestors, leading to more rebound infections and more infections among people who had so far been able to avoid it. Read more.
It’s time for Alabamians who do not want to catch COVID to put back on their masks. That was the advice from the Alabama Department of Public Health this week as cases continued to increase across the state. After the state’s positivity rate dropped to single digits in the spring and hospitals cleared out their overflow patients, people began to think the pandemic was over. It is not. Hospitalizations have been rising in recent weeks, and 677 people diagnosed with COVID were in Alabama hospitals Friday, According to the Alabama Department of Public Health’s COVID dashboard. That’s the highest number since February, but it’s not nearly the almost 3,000 daily average COVID patients in hospitals in January. The state’s positivity rate, which shows the portion of people who were officially tested for COVID-19 and returned a positive result, has risen to 30.2%. Read more.
The Yellowhammer Fund has temporarily stopped funding abortion care for people in Alabama, amid legal concerns for clients and staff. Read more.
The agency will still be allowed to regulate many forms of air pollution but would need explicit direction from Congress on how to tackle some of the worst aspects of climate change and other pressing issues. Read more.
