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Judge Bill Filmore announces campaign for Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
Judge Chris McCool running for Alabama Supreme Court
Allen officially withdraws Alabama from the Electronic Registration Information Center
House District 10 challenge now at Alabama Supreme Court
Justice Sarah Stewart announces bid for Alabama Chief Justice
Bill filed to prevent employers from mandating microchips
Pre-filed bills would slash incentive time accruals
State Rep. Paschal appointed vice chair of military, veterans committee
Hulsey elected freshman rep to Alabama House GOP leadership
New Hoover Rep. Mike Shaw seeks to consider unintended consequences of legislation
Resicum International plans $1.3 million Aviation Training Academy
Online job ads in December up 3.9 percent from last year
Gov. Ivey announces another record high jobs count
Innovate Alabama opens second round of grant funding to benefit local entrepreneurs
Small business optimism drops, expectations for business conditions worsen
Britt joins letter in support of Medicare Advantage program
Rep. Sewell named to the House Armed Services Committee
Rep. Carl chosen to serve on three appropriations subcommittees
Sewell, Alabama delegation ask Biden to increase federal for disaster relief
Perry Hooper’s alleged victim “heartbroken, outraged” by recent pleadings
ASU student authors, illustrates superhero comic book
PARCA: High school graduates entering into colleges increases slightly
Sen. Katie Britt celebrates School Choice Week
CollegeCounts 2023 Scholarship open for Alabama students
Troy University hires retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Boutwell as senior vice chancellor
State has spent nearly $1.7M on experts, lawyers in transgender medical care suit
Ivey attends ribbon-cutting ceremony for Craig Crisis Care Center
COVID-19 positivity rate, hospitalizations jump in Alabama
In case over transgender health care ban, medical groups seek to quash state subpoenas
Medical Cannabis Commission receives 94 license applications
Vaccine data is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, except where specified otherwise, and may differ from data provided by the Alabama Department of Public Health.
Different trackers have different cut-off times and tracking methods, so daily case totals may be slightly different. There are three main tracking methods for Alabama’s case data. (1) Cases by date of infectiousness, (2) cases by date reported to ADPH, and (3) a raw tracking of the cumulative case count.
For most of the pandemic, through the summer of 2021, APR’s dashboard relied on the third method (3), meaning that our dashboard captured the cumulative case count (the total number of cases since March 2020) for each day as publicly posted on ADPH’s data portal. The previous day’s cumulative case count was then subtracted from the current day’s count to arrive at a daily increase. For example, the cumulative case count on Jan. 17, 2021, was 422,598. The count on Jan. 18, 2021, was 424,028. Therefore, the case increase on Jan. 18 was listed as 1,430. Other than some ad hoc accounting for backlogs, the data isn’t revised later.
The second method (2) is similar except that it relies on internal counts provided by the Alabama Department of Public Health. The “date reported” represents when the case was reported to ADPH by a health care provider. If ADPH receives 5,000 case reports on a day, that day’s case increase will be listed as 5,000, regardless of when the case actually occurred. Counts are typically very close to the first method (1), except for some fluctuation caused by delays. ADPH doesn’t adjust this data when backlogs are reported, so some dates have data anomalies caused by that.
The first method (1) tracks cases by the date the case occurred — in other words, when the case became infectious or ill. This count differs from the “date reported” because there are sometimes delays or backlogs between when a case occurs and when a provider reports that case to ADPH. There have been instances throughout the pandemic when labs and other providers have neglected to report cases immediately. For instance, a single lab could report 5,000 cases on Dec. 15. Once inspected, it’s determined those cases occurred in October and November. ADPH will backdate each case to the date it occurred. This method accounts for backlogs better than that second (2) and third (3). However, this method has lag. Data for the last two weeks — and occasionally longer — are often incomplete because of the time it takes providers to report cases to ADPH and for ADPH to determine and record the date of occurence. That’s why on the daily case count chart of cases by date of infectiousness, it frequently looks as if the daily case counts for the last few days have taken a sudden dive. That is usually because the data is incomplete. As time goes on, ADPH receives more reports and updates daily numbers, and the numbers are typically revised upward.
The same three methods are used for deaths as well, i.e. deaths by actual date of death, deaths by date of report, and a raw tracking of the cumulative death count.
ADPH uses the first method (1) for monitoring COVID-19 cases and trends as it is a more accurate representation of disease transmission levels in the community than the second method (2). Beginning in July and August of 2021, APR removed method three (3) from our dashboard. Now, we rely on the data provided by ADPH and provide both method one (1) and method two (2) tracking in several categories. However, we still perform other calculations on our own based on ADPH’s data.
We update our data shortly after the Alabama Department of Public Health releases new COVID-19 data. Beginning in July 2022, ADPH moved to only updating data once per week, which means that APR’s data dashboard will only update once per week. Hospitalization data and vaccination data provided by the CDC may update more frequently, but the CDC is also currently only updating publicly available data once per week.
Email [email protected] if you have a question or concern about the dashboard. We will do our best to respond, though we may not be able to respond to everyone.