In Alabama, more people died in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic than were born, a top state health official said.
Alabama continues to fight the virus that has left the world struggling for the past year and a half. During a news briefing on Friday, Dr. Scott Harris, an Alabama Health Officer, shared the terrifying statistic.
"This past year, 2020, is going to be the first year that we know of in the history of our state where we actually had more deaths than births," Harris said.
"Our state literally shrunk," he said, attempting to emphasize what he just shared.
The data that Harris spoke of showed that in the state, 64,714 people died in 2020 while only 57,641 were born, he said. While state health department data showed that the state had 54,109 deaths in 2019 while there were 58,615 births.
State data also showed that 7,182 people in Alabama died due to COVID-19 in 2020, and the total number of COVID-19 deaths reached 13,209 as of Saturday.
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In Alabama, 41% of the state's population is vaccinated as the Delta variant has wreaked havoc throughout the south. The state was struggling with hospitalizations as ICU beds began to fill. Recently beds have freed up, though it's not from people recovering from the virus, WDSU reported.
The chief of hospital medicine at the University of Alabama Medicine, Dr. Kierstin Kennedy, warned that people are continuing to lose their lives.
"It is not because these patients are miraculously getting better and going home. It's because they're dying," Kennedy said.
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Kennedy shared that those dying from the virus are the elderly and those who have not received their shots.
"This is not a surge of the young vaccinated that are six months out from their shots. This is a surge of the unvaccinated," Kennedy said.
COVID-19 spikes continue to be in southern states where vaccination rates remain low. Local officials continue to ask the community to get vaccinated as cases remain high.
