Alabama adds 3,840 COVID-19 cases, sixth day of hospitalization records for Dec. 4

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Alabama’s COVID-19 infection rate continues to skyrocket with another 3,840 cases reported Friday by the Alabama Department of Public Health.

The state is also dealing with rising, record-breaking hospitalization rates and a positive test rate among the highest in the nation at almost 31 percent.

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Friday is the fourth straight day in which the state recorded more than 3,000 cases. The seven-day average for new cases has also climbed to 3,046, the first time it has ever topped the 3,000-mark.

The state now reports a total of 264,199 cases and a death toll of 3,831 since the pandemic reached Alabama in mid-March.

The statewide hospital in-patient rate stands at record highs with more hospitalizations expected as those infected during the Thanksgiving holiday begin to test positive and need medical care.

Friday brought a sixth straight day of record COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide at 1,875, topping Thursday’s record with nearly 50 more admissions.

The latest hospitalization records dwarf those seen when the state underwent an illness spike in July that topped out at 1,642. That high nearly crippled the state’s healthcare system.

In Montgomery, there are 134 patients being treated in the area’s four primary hospitals. That includes 101 at Baptist Health’s three facilities, as of Friday, and 33 at Jackson Hospital, as of Thursday.

In Birmingham, UAB reported 214 in-patients Friday, down by nine from the day before and off from the record 127 it set earlier in the week.

In the Auburn/Opelika area, East Alabama Medical Center reported 49 in-patients, as of Thursday, a rate not topped since Aug. 2.

A total of 26,062 people have been hospitalized since the pandemic started.

Alabama has conducted 1,700,437 total tests, or around 34 percent of the state’s population, since the pandemic started.

Over the past 14 days, ADPH data indicates 117,320 people have been tested. Of those, 36,350 had the disease for an extremely high positive test rate of 30.98 percent, one of the highest in the nation.

The state presumes 168,387 people, or about 63.7 percent of cases, have since recovered from COVID-19, but it only updates the data on a weekly basis.

ADPH provides data on a number of points related to COVID-19. More features can be accessed by clicking here.

When it comes to daily county case reports, Montgomery confirmed 113 new cases Friday with a seven-day average of 79 cases per day. Notably, the county has reported nine deaths since Wednesday.

The ADPH provides a color-code map showing the risk indicator for each of the state’s 67 counties. You can also view more details on each county by clicking here.

Alabama’s school systems have been working to teach students through a variety of ways, whether in-person, through virtual or distance learning, or a hybrid option. ADPH and the state education department have since released a dashboard that is updated weekly that tracks the number of COVID-19 reports on a system-wide level. Each report includes combined student and staff data. Individual schools are not identified due to privacy policies.

The Alabama Department of Corrections oversees more than 26,000 inmates. It provides a report on the disease among prisoners and ADOC staff. That data is available here.

You can also review the latest data on not just Alabama, but every county in the nation by using this map. Hover over any county to see the numbers. The map is shaded to show the concentration of confirmed COVID-19 cases relative to the population in that county. The data is pulled from Johns Hopkins University.