The Alabama Department of Public Health reported 234 new deaths from coronavirus on Tuesday – the highest number ever recorded in a day.
It is the second time that record has been broken so far this month. In just 26 days, the state has recorded more than 2,000 virus deaths so far this year.
The rate at which Alabama has reported virus deaths has increased dramatically so far in 2021. Tuesday’s huge total has raised the state’s 7-day average for reported deaths to 110 a day. It is only the seventh day since the start of the pandemic, the 7-day average for reported deaths has been over 100, and all seven days came in January.
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The state reports that 6,896 people have died from the virus so far. Almost a third of them were reported this year. ADPH reported 2,069 deaths from the coronavirus this month – about 80 deaths a day. The state has never averaged more than 60 reported virus deaths per day throughout the year 2020.
But that does not mean that 80 people die every day from the virus in Alabama. There is a big difference between when someone actually dies and when their death is officially reported as coronavirus death. This process can take months, although reporting delays appear to be decreasing.
The record death toll on Tuesday included two deaths as of May 16, and several more since August, according to death date data. But about half occurred this year. Of the 234 deaths in Alabama reported on Tuesday, 115 occurred in January.
Wiregrass and Black Belt were hit hard in 2021
Each county in Alabama has reported at least one death so far in 2021. Choctaw County, in western Alabama, bordering Mississippi, has reported two deaths this year – the smallest of all counties. Jefferson County, the most populous county in the state and home to Birmingham, reported the most, at 352.
More than 1,000 people died from the virus in Jefferson County alone.
Only one other county has recorded at least 100 deaths so far in 2021 – Houston County, home of Dothan, in the far southeast of Alabama.
Houston is one of several counties in southeastern Alabama – a region known as Wiregrass – that has seen a relatively large increase in deaths reported so far in January.
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62 percent of all virus deaths ever reported in Houston County – home to more than 100,000 people – occurred in 2021. And it is one of only seven counties to report at least 10 deaths per 10,000 people so far this year. Three nearby counties – Henry, Geneva and Covington, are also on that list.
But no county reported more deaths per capita in January than Dallas, home to Selma, in the Black Belt region of Alabama. Dallas recorded 54 deaths in January, or 14.5 deaths per 10,000 people in just 26 days. The other counties to report at least 10 deaths per 10,000 people in January are Clay and Coosa – neighboring counties in central eastern Alabama.
Eight counties, including Dallas and Houston, saw at least half of their total deaths this month. Henry saw 68 percent of the total in the past 26 days – the highest percentage in the state. The others are Coosa, Russell, Geneva, Covington and Etowah.
Reporting delay is decreasing
ADPH has been analyzing old data and adding historical deaths to the state count since November. On January 12 – the only other day on which the state recorded at least 200 deaths in a single day – ADPH added a note saying that the process was ongoing and that most of the added deaths were old.
The average death reported on January 12 was about 100 days, according to data from the independent data tracking website BamaTracker. But in the past few days, the state appears to have reported more recent deaths. Among the deaths recorded on Tuesday, the average age dropped to 54 days.
The average 7-day delay in the report also dropped to 44 days – the lowest since at least 14 October. This means that deaths reported by ADPH now tend to be more recent.
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The way the state reports deaths makes it difficult to know exactly where Alabama is in terms of current mortality, changing our understanding of how deadly this virus has been since the beginning.
ADPH’s date of death data shows that 488 of the deaths reported so far in January have actually occurred this month. Most of the rest has happened before, although some have yet to set a date. But the number of deaths in January is certain to increase as more time passes and more data arrives.
So far, 787 of the 6,896 deaths in Alabama have not yet been assigned a date.
Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Send an email to Ramsey Archibald at [email protected]and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories on here.