Alabama just had its worst week ever for new coronavirus cases.
The Alabama Department of Public Health reported 28,540 new cases during the week ended Jan. 8. That is about 1,600 more cases than the previous record, and almost as many cases as were reported during the entire month of September.
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Some of the cases reported this week are probably old. A message on ADPH’s coronavirus dashboard said that the state expects data delays due to the Christmas and New Year holidays, and that some cases and deaths entering the system this week would be from the previous week.
The increase in new cases for the week ending Jan. 8 brought Alabama’s moving average from 7 days to 4,077 cases per day, just shy of the record of 4,133 daily cases that occurred on Dec. 23.
The tranquility caused by the holiday is easy to see in the moving average of the state, which fell to 3,142 on December 29th.
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This week’s numbers include a record 5,498 cases reported on January 5th. At the current rate, Alabama is likely to exceed the 400,000 overall mark this weekend.
The state also reported 319 virus deaths this week, the second highest weekly total since detection began. Again, some of those would probably have been reported in the previous week, even if it hadn’t been for the holidays.
Alabama earlier this week had a death toll of 5,000, and the state has reported 305 deaths in the past three days alone.
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More than 10,000 of the cases reported this week come from four counties – the four most populous in Alabama – Jefferson, Madison, Mobile and Montgomery. But a number of others have seen significant increases in their case numbers this week, especially as they control the population.
Crenshaw County, just south of Montgomery in southeast Alabama, saw the highest increase in cases this week. ADPH reported 148 new cases there this week, or 107.5 cases per 10,000 people. It was one of only two provinces with more than 100 new cases per 10,000 people this week. The other was Hale, a small province south of Tuscaloosa in the Black Belt region of Alabama.
Hale added 154 cases this week, or about 105.1 cases per 10.00 people.
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Jefferson County, the most populous county in the state and home of Birmingham, this week added the 455 new cases from any country. More than 57,600 cases have been reported in Jefferson County since the pandemic began.
ADPH also reported 57 new deaths in Jefferson County this week, the most of any state. This brought the death of Jefferson to 776.
The provinces of Tuscaloosa and Walker also saw a large increase in death rates, but both were the result of large one-day jumps. Tuscaloosa reported 49 new deaths this week, but 45 of them came on Friday. Walker reported 32 new deaths this week, 31 of which would come on Thursday. Both large increases are likely to be due to backlogs in each country.
You can see weekly and total cases and deaths for each country 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 information stories about Alabama here.