Alabama made meaningful progress in every important coronavirus tracking number over the past week, even as the virus remains widespread and highly active across the state.
The state averaged 855 new coronavirus cases every day for the last week, down from 1,156 for the week ending August 13, a 26% decrease.
Over the same timespan, 108 new COVID-19 patients were admitted to the hospital each day, down from 131 a week earlier, an 18% decrease.
Yellowhammer News used numbers from coronavirus data trackers BamaTracker and Johns Hopkins University.
Especially encouraging to experts is that only 6.42% of the coronavirus tests conducted in Alabama over the last seven days came back positive, a significant decline from 13.07% on August 13 and a high of over 20% on August 2.
Alabama’s 6.42% positivity rate is virtually tied with the national average of 6.3% after months of vastly exceeding it.
A less heartening sign is that the new case average, though down on a week to week basis, rose to its current 855 from a low of 744 on August 17.
The state has now had 107,483 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak in March.
Thursday morning, 59 of Alabama’s 67 counties reported a new coronavirus case, indicating the virus remains as widespread across the state as it was a week ago.
On each of the previous seven days, an average of 12 Alabamians died with COVID-19, an almost 50% decline from the 23.86 per day that perished on the week ending August 13.
A total of 1,905 people in Alabama have died with the coronavirus since March, with another 69 that BamaTracker lists as “probable” but have not yet been confirmed by the Alabama Department of Public Health.
The favorable numbers experienced recently by Alabama come a month after Governor Kay Ivey implemented a statewide mask mandate.
Infectious disease experts at UAB Hospital and the Jefferson and Mobile County Departments of Public Health have said the mask order is having a significant impact, though Dr. Scott Harris of the Alabama Department of Public Health has been hesitant to attribute the progress being made to any one single factor.
The first people to be punished under the mask order were young people at bars in Tuscaloosa this week. The city police department handed out 12 citations and arrested two individuals who refused to sign a citation.
The Auburn Police Department has similarly promised to enforce the mask order in their jurisdiction.
Several photos and videos have been posted to social media in recent days of individuals in Tuscaloosa and Auburn gathering at bars while not observing precautions like social distancing or mask wearing.
The State of Alabama also launched the GuideSafe app this week, which had previously been piloted on college students. GuideSafe is a contact tracing app designed to inform persons when they have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus.
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: henry@new-yhn.local or on Twitter @HenryThornton95
