This is an opinion column.
America, I dread what is about to happen to Alabama. You need to pay attention, though. You need to watch. I fear my state will soon get ripped to shreds by COVID and there might be little anyone can do to stop it.
For most here, it’s too late. It’s not too late for you.
The situation in Alabama is dire, but few folks here seem cognizant yet of its seriousness. In less than a month, some south Alabama counties have seen case numbers go from next to zero to new pandemic highs. Every Alabama county has seen its COVID cases rise. But rather than take precautions to prevent the spread, most Alabamians seem to be going about their lives as if nothing has changed, even in those counties experiencing unprecedented new cases — and doing so with the tacit approval, if not encouragement, of public officials.
The state is unprepared for what’s to come. Alabama has the lowest vaccination rate in the country. Simultaneously, Alabama has the highest test positivity rate — an indicator of how many cases are yet undiscovered.
Our governor, Kay Ivey, has bemoaned the vaccination rate and recently blasted the unvaccinated for the rise in new cases.
“It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks,” she said last week. “It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”
Ivey’s sudden righteous outrage misses an important fact. With nearly two-thirds of the state population still unvaccinated, the “unvaccinated folks” are the “regular folks” in Alabama.
In the same interview, the governor dismissed other measures she could take to slow the spread of the disease — incentive programs for new vaccinations, renewed mask mandates or social distancing requirements in public places. With an election less than a year away, Ivey seems more worried about opposition in the Republican primary than she is about the health and safety of her constituents.
If every unvaccinated Alabamian got their first shot tomorrow, it would take weeks for those vaccines to yield their protection. Millions of Alabamians are sitting ducks. But our governor has not plotted out this simple math problem on a calendar, nor has she done anything to buy Alabamians more time.
Unfortunately, Alabama businesses and other institutions are ill-equipped to protect themselves. Three months ago, Gov. Ivey signed into law a vaccine passport ban that requires businesses to allow unvaccinated customers onto their private property.
Further, the bill makes it illegal for schools and universities to require students to be vaccinated for COVID. After one Alabama private college said it would charge unvaccinated students a fee for regular COVID testing, the passport ban’s sponsor said he had notified the authorities that his law might have been broken. When asked about his bill in May, that lawmaker, state Sen. Arthur Orr, did not seem to know what was in his bill nor understand completely what it did.
Alabama schools are scheduled to reopen in about two weeks. Only a few districts have adopted new masking policies for students. Most are leaving it up to parents to decide. The governor is on record saying she will not recommend masking or other covid mitigation in public schools.
Pediatricians are sounding alarms here, saying that children are not safe from the disease, but few Alabama politicians seem to be considering those warnings with any seriousness. Katie Britt, widely considered a more moderate Republican candidate for United States Senate, has spoken out publicly against any form of mask mandate to protect school children, but perhaps not as forcefully as her opponent and the presumptive front-runner in that race, Rep. Mo Brooks, who said that masks might cause cancer.
Meanwhile, public health officials and health care professionals are often attacked or threatened for speaking out. After a doctor at Birmingham’s Grandview hospital, Brytney Cobia, wrote on Facebook about the preventable deaths she’d witnessed, she was accused on local talk radio of having made the whole thing up. Never mind that the mother of one of Cobia’s deceased patients confirmed her story in the comments beneath Cobia’s Facebook post and to the media.
And when the Centers for Disease Control issued new warnings and guidance regarding the Delta variant this week, Alabama’s lieutenant governor again attacked the messengers.
“The CDC has lost all credibility with its confusing and contradictory guidance, and Fauci continues to be a disaster,” Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth wrote. “I believe people should get the vaccine…but it must not be forced on anyone.”
What seems lost on Ainsworth and others is that new information is a good thing, even if it’s discouraging in the short term. Perhaps an unfortunate failure of K-12 education is that it has taught too many folks that science is a collection of facts and not a process of discovery and understanding. This is, after all, a state that still puts disclaimers in its science textbooks telling students that evolution is a controversial theory. When new information comes to light, that’s useful. Many of our public officials don’t get that, even a year and a half into this pandemic.
Central to Alabama’s apathy might be false confidence after the alpha or “wild” variant of the coronavirus. While the state has lost more than 11,000 people to the disease — about one in 425 residents — many made it through the winter surge untouched. The case numbers have been worse before.
Missing right now, though, is a clear understanding of delta’s long reach and quick spread. The CDC now says the disease may be as contagious as chickenpox. This is not the disease we were fighting six months ago.
The best-case scenario is that Alabama is seeing a post-July 4 surge, much like last year, and case numbers will fall again soon before flaring during the holidays. But even then, if this is what a summer surge looks like, what will winter bring?
No sooner will this column be published than my email inbox will fill again with vitriol, invective, and familiar flawed arguments — that masks don’t work, that the virus is a hoax, that the vaccines aren’t approved by the FDA, and that I’m trying to spread fear.
To the last count, I plead guilty.
But fear is not an irrational reaction when lives are at risk. Fear is the right response. In small doses, it can be a healthy, life-preserving thing. We need a lot of small doses in Alabama, as many as we need vaccines.
At some point, fear will catch up with Alabama, seconds behind its cousin reality. Until then, Alabama will play the role it always does: the Cautionary Tale.
The example for America of what not to do.
Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group, 2020 winner of the Walker Stone Award, winner of the 2021 SPJ award for opinion writing, and 2021 winner of the Molly Ivins prize for political commentary.
You can follow his work on his Facebook page, The War on Dumb. And on Twitter. And on Instagram.
More columns by Kyle Whitmire
Do your job, Kay Ivey. Mask-up Alabama.
Faith, foolishness and COVID ‘Final Destination’ Syndrome
Gov. Ivey gets mad about COVID. Now it’s time for her to do something.
Limestone Co. sheriff’s trial is a three-ring circus of incompetence and corruption
What is Kay Ivey so afraid of?
Closed court blinds justice in Limestone County
Alabama is dead last in vaccinations. Kay Ivey seems OK with that.