There were 666 new cases of COVID-19 reported Saturday, July 31st – according to a dashboard update from the Alabama Department of Public Health.

Those numbers are lower than the previous week – where cases averaged more than 2,000 a day.  The case total for July 31st is the lowest in more than two weeks, but the reports of new positive cases often drop on weekends; officials delayed the reporting of case numbers from Thursday and Friday as they updated their data.

The tracking dashboard showed around 2,000 cases for July 29th with a total of 1,327 listed for July 30th.

The Alabama Department of Public Health has categorized all but three of the state’s counties as “High Risk” for transmission of COVID-19.   Experts in infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have announced that almost all samples sequenced by labs at the university have been the delta variant, which is much more transmissible than other variants.  Dr. Michael Saag, a professor in UAB’s department of infectious diseases has recently urged both unvaccinated and vaccinated people to wear masks in indoor settings.

Alabama hospitals reported Saturday they were treating 1,371 patients for COVID-19

That number has increased dramatically since early July, when hospitals treated less than 200 patients for the virus.   

Last summer, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients peaked at around 1,500, and hit 3,000 during the winter surge.

(AL.COM/www.al.com)