COVID hotspot Alabama sees cases fall

The Southern state, which was averaging a record 5,538 COVID cases per week at the beginning of September during its biggest outbreak ever, saw its number of new cases drop 69.1% over the past two weeks.

In late August and early September, Alabama’s intensive care units were overrun with nearly 3,000 patients as the Delta variant preyed on the unvaccinated.

Since the peak of its outbreak, new cases have been mostly decreasing in Alabama, and as of Oct. 13 the state had a seven-day average of 893 cases, its lowest since mid-July, according to the New York Times.

The state’s vaccination rate has still lagged behind, with 44% of residents fully vaccinated compared with 57% of people in the U.S. overall. In response to President Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees, some residents are supporting a bill to get the state to prohibit vaccine mandates.

In May, the state legislature passed SB267, which banned “vaccine passports.” Since then, some in-person events have found a loophole for the law by requiring either vaccination or a negative COVID test to enter.

The nonprofit group Health Freedom Alabama seeks to end the loophole with HB31, which would attempt to bar any vaccine mandate in the state and make vaccination and immunity status a “protected class” like race and religious affiliation, according to AL.com.

Along with Alabama, new cases have been dropping across the South, which was once the hotbed of infections in the U.S. Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee all have experienced decreases of 50% or nearly 50% over the past two weeks.