535 New COVID-19 Cases Has Alabama Health Director Concerned

MONTGOMERY, AL — The number of new COVID-19 cases each day has state health director Dr. Scott Harris concerned. The Alabama Department of Public Health has confirmed 16,310 cases of COVID-19 in Alabama, an increase of 535 cases in just 24 hours.

Harris and Sen. Doug Jones conducted a joint news conference Thursday to discuss the status of Alabama's efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19, and Harris said the numbers he is seeing lately are not encouraging. The state has reported 590 deaths from the virus.

"We’re extraordinarily concerned about the numbers that we have been seeing,” Harris said. "We know that ADPH and partners we work with have managed to increase the number of tests we’re doing throughout the state, but that doesn’t account for the case numbers that we’re seeing, or certainly doesn’t completely account for it."

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Alabama's number of new cases each day has increases at a faster rate than 46 other states in the country in the last two weeks, and as the state has started reopening, this trend may get worse, Harris said.

"Now more than ever, now that people are out in public, this is the time when they really need to follow those rules, those guidelines," Harris said. He added that face coverings are "imperative" when out in public.

About a third of Alabama's total COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the last 14 days, since Gov. Kay Ivey announced that restaurants and bars could reopen. The state has confirmed 5,225 new cases of the virus in the last two weeks.

Harris said the increase in new cases in areas like Tuscaloosa, Montgomery and Walker counties is not due to increased testing, but to community transmission.

Jefferson County Thursday reached triple digits in the number of COVID-19 deaths reported in the county.

"Those numbers just sound like numbers, they’re statistics," Harris said. "But it’s really important to remember that every one of those numbers is a person. They’re someone’s parent or child or brother or sister."

As of Thursday afternoon, the counties with the most cases on COVID-19:

• Mobile County: 2,118 confirmed cases; 20,294 tested; 112 deaths
• Jefferson County: 1,694 confirmed cases; 36,257 tested; 100 deaths
• Montgomery County: 1,514 confirmed cases; 8,688 tested; 34 deaths
• Marshall County: 663 confirmed cases; 5,128 tested; 9 deaths
• Tuscaloosa County: 648 confirmed cases; 9,316 tested; 13 deaths

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