For the first time since the winter virus surge, Alabama is now reporting more than 100 COVID-19 deaths per day.
Data from the Alabama Department of Public Health shows the state’s 7-day average for newly reported deaths reached 106 on Tuesday, the highest mark since Feb. 8. The all-time high was 154 deaths reported per day on Jan. 29.
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There is an average of around two weeks between when a death occurs and when it is reported to ADPH, meaning the deaths reported over the last seven days happened earlier. This has been the case throughout the pandemic, as deaths have been a lagging indicator from the beginning.
The state’s death numbers over the last week were boosted by multiple large single-day increases. The state reported nearly 200 new deaths last Friday, and added more than 160 on Saturday. After just one death over the weekend, ADPH on Tuesday reported 250 new deaths, the most added to the total in a single day since Feb. 10.
These newly reported deaths could be just the beginning, as the state is starting to understand just how deadly the delta variant really was - and continues to be.
RELATED: As delta wave slows, Alabama starts to count the dead
The latest surge in reported deaths comes as Alabama’s duel with delta appears to be slowing down. The state’s 7-day average for new reported cases fell to just over 3,000 per day on Tuesday, down from an all-time high of over 5,000 earlier this month. The state’s positivity rate on new tests is also falling, and virus hospitalization numbers have been in free fall over the last two weeks.
The number of COVID patients in state hospitals fell below 2,000 on Sunday after threatening to top 3,000 earlier in the month. Unfortunately, these newly reported deaths likely play a big part in that drop in hospitalizations.
“There are two ways people leave the hospital, and one of them is not very good,” Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said in his weekly COVID-19 press conference last week. “And while we’re having double digit numbers of deaths, that certainly, in part, accounts for the declining number of hospitalizations we’re seeing.”
Alabama is starting to see the true toll of delta, and the weight of the coronavirus pandemic as a whole. Since the very start of the pandemic, nearly 13,500 Alabamians have reportedly died of the virus.
2020 was the deadliest year in Alabama history, according to Harris. It was the first year on record where more people died than were born in the state.
“Our state literally shrunk this year for the first time in history,” Harris said in a COVID town hall held by AL.com last week. “Even going back to World War II when people were serving overseas, going back to the Spanish Flu epidemic, going back to World War I, we’ve never seen that happen before in the state of Alabama until COVID this past year.”
It’s possible 2021 could be even worse. According to data from ADPH, 7,183 of Alabama’s confirmed COVID-19 deaths, or about 53%, happened in 2020. This year’s toll is already up to 6,277, and going up every day.
Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.com, and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.
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