Alabama added 811 new cases of COVID-19 and 28 deaths from the disease in Friday's daily update by the state Department of Public Health. There have been 498,887 cases of the coronavirus in the state since the pandemic began last March. The report showed a total of 10,122 deaths. Read more.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey Thursday extended a statewide mandate requiring residents to wear face masks as protection from the coronavirus in public places and businesses until after Easter at 5 p.m. She also eased restrictions on restaurants and bars, hospitals and nursing homes. Ivey declared this would be the last mask mandate for Alabama. “We have to get past Easter before we take the steps that other states have taken,” she said. “But let me make this perfectly clear, we will not continue mask orders after April 9.” Read more.
More than a million doses of vaccines for COVID-19 have been administered in Alabama, the state Department of Public Health said Thursday. In its daily update, the agency said 1,003,396 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been given, and 352,749 individuals have received both shots. A total of 1,475,925 doses have been delivered to the state. ADPH reported 922 new cases of the coronavirus in Thursday's daily update, bringing the total to 498,076 since the pandemic began a year ago. There were 65 new deaths, raising the total to 10,094. Read more.
As of Wednesday, UAB had administered roughly 80,000 vaccine doses, but Black residents remain disproportionately underrepresented. Read more.
UAB and the Alabama NAACP are hosting a virtual public information session on the coronavirus vaccine tonight at 6 p.m. The session is open to anyone who wants to join in. Topics to be covered by UAB doctors include vaccine safety, vaccine hesitation and vaccine effectiveness. Read more.
On March 25, 2020, the Alabama Department of Public Health announced the first death to be officially attributed to the COVID-19 outbreak. Thelma Jenny McDonald, nicknamed “Chicken,” lived in Stevenson, a small town in the northeast part of the state. She died at age 53. That death came two weeks after March 11, the day many people realized how bad the outbreak had become, as the World Health Organization officially declared a global pandemic. It also was the day the National Basketball Association, the NCAA basketball playoffs and golf’s PGA Tour abruptly shut down after players tested positive for what was still called the Wuhan virus, so dubbed for the Chinese city where it was first detected. Almost a year later, more than 10,000 Alabamians have perished from COVID. The official death toll passed five figures as of Wednesday, with 10,029 fatalities. The path to 10,000 has been one of slow progressions and fearsome streaks. It took more than three months after McDonald’s passing for the death toll to reach 1,000, but a big spike after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays led to a single week in late January when more than 1,000 deaths were reported. Read more.
Alabama's COVID-19 death count moved past the 10,000 mark in Wednesday's update by the state Department of Public Health. The agency added 38 deaths from the coronavirus, bringing the total to 10,029 since the pandemic began almost a year ago. The agency reported 2,733 cases of COVID-19 in the report but said 2,114 of those were delayed reports from May 2020. That left 619 new cases for the 24-hour period covered by the update. There have been 497,154 cases throughtout the pandemic. Including just the new cases in Wednesday's report, the state has averaged 688 cases a day over the past week, the lowest weekly average since as count of 678 on June 24. Read more.
The daily average number of new cases of COVID-19 and the number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus have dropped to the lowest levels since June, according to Tuesday's update by the state Department of Public Health. The agency reported 652 new cases of the disease during the latest 24-hour period. That left the average at 651 cases a day over the past week, the lowest since an average of 650 on June 18. The figure has been steadily falling since reaching a high of 3,084 on Jan. 11. ADPH said there were 651 people in Alabama hospitals for COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total for the course of the pandemic to 45,648. Monday's total was the lowest since the report of 650 inpatients on June 28. The peak of 3,084 inpatients was reported on Jan. 11. Read more.
UAB health experts say when it comes to vaccine variety, more is better. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the latest to win approval from the federal government. Read more.
Alabama's death toll for COVID-19 is approaching the 10,000 mark this weekend after the state Department of Public Health added 61 deaths from the disease in Saturday's daily update. The report raised the number of people who have died from the coronavirus over the coure of the pandemic to 9,930. The total has reached that level in just over 11 months since the death last March 23 of Thelma Jenny McDonald, 53, of the northeast Alabama town of Stevenson, the first person in the state to die after testing positive for COVID.19. Saturday's ADPH update showed 834 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 492,683 throughout the pandemic. The state averaged 957 new cases a day during the past week, less than one-fourth of the average daily high of 4,280 reported on Jan. 10. Read more.
