The coronavirus pandemic has reached a key moment in Alabama, and the distribution of the vaccine in the state continues to advance slowly. The number of new cases is plummeting – reaching levels not seen here since October – and if all the pieces fit together correctly, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.
But things are not exactly going well. The spectrum of new variants of the virus – already confirmed in Alabama – has raised questions about whether we can vaccinate people quickly enough to compensate for a new outbreak. At the moment, Alabama is lagging behind.
As of Friday, Alabama was the last in the country in terms of vaccine doses given per capita. This includes the first and second doses.
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But there are several ways to measure vaccine implantation, and Alabama is almost at the bottom of the list. Despite everything, the state is gaining ground.
On Friday, Alabama rose to the lowest seventh level in terms of the percentage of the population that received at least one dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In early February, Alabama came in fourth place from last place in that category. But the state recently overtook Tennessee, Georgia and Rhode Island in the distribution of the first doses.
The data show that 9.1 percent of Alabama’s population received at least the first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
But Alabama continues to waste time distributing second doses and complete vaccinations. So far, only 2.5% of the state’s population has received a second dose, the penultimate in the country, only behind Idaho.
It will take some time for Alabama to recover in that category. The state was slow to launch the first doses, and a second dose cannot be administered for several weeks after the initial injection.
The number of weekly vaccines has recently reached a plateau, hovering over 100,000 doses administered per week in the past month.
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This week’s data is not complete because it does not include Saturday’s data.
The number of Pfizer vaccines administered here each week has steadily increased since the initial launch in December. The state injected 58,000 guns with this particular vaccine this week, the highest amount in a week, despite including only six days of data.
But the number of Modern vaccines given each week has declined in the past three weeks, from almost 70,000 in the week ending January 23 to just 43,000 this week.
State exceeds 9,000 deaths from coronavirus, but cases are falling
The state this week has exceeded a total of 9,000 virus deaths since the pandemic began. The Alabama Department of Public Health reports that 9,180 people died from the virus in Alabama. Almost half of those deaths were reported in 2021, including another 731 deaths reported this week.
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This does not mean that many people have died so far in 2021 – mortality data takes time to complete and many of the deaths reported so far this year are from December of last year or earlier. But the state reported an average of more than 100 deaths per day recently, and the average reported deaths were just 25 days – meaning that most occurred in 2021.
And date of death data, which is not yet complete, shows that 1,776 people died from the virus in January – the highest number in a month. These data, which are still missing hundreds of deaths, show 1,531 people died in December, the next following month.
But there is good news. The number of new cases dropped sharply in Alabama last month, down 69% since January 10.
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The 7-day average for new cases dropped to 1,335 cases per day on Friday – the lowest number since October.
On Monday, the state registered fewer than 1,000 new cases in one day, the first time it had happened in a day with no data delay since the beginning of November.
The state reported 9,348 new cases this week, the lowest weekly total since the week ending October 16, and for the first time in 14 weeks the state has not exceeded the 10,000 case limit.
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In Alabama, Jefferson County – the state’s most populous county – added the most new cases of the virus this week. Jefferson added 1,163 new cases, followed by Mobile with 849 new cases, and Madison, home to Huntsville, with 839.
Tuscaloosa County, home to the University of Alabama, reported 57 new deaths this week – the highest number of all counties. Jefferson was the second with 53 deaths.
You can see how many cases and deaths each Alabama county added this week and overall in the table below:
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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.