On this week’s broadcast of APTV’s “Capitol Journal,” Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris indicated he anticipates the state’s peak coronavirus outbreak to come sometime between a week to 10 days. The severity of that peak, he said, depends on how well the so-called social distancing guidelines are adhered to.
When asked by host APTV host Don Dailey about the constantly-shifting models from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and other organizations, Harris said some of that comes from policy decisions but said it was difficult to know if the model’s actual numbers were accurate.
However, Harris said he felt the timeline of the models was reliable and pointed to April 20-22 as the point at which Alabama sees its peak.
“We look at all of these and try to glean what we can, and sort of understand the methodology they use to make those predictions,” Harris said. “The IHME site that you mentioned is probably the most widely used one in the country. It comes from the University of Washington. There’s a lot of that has gone into that model. But a lot of the models are based on assumptions, of course. It’s not necessarily based on data. And so, what we believe with IHME and several other models is the timeline is pretty accurate. We feel like as they predict the peak number of cases, we know about when that is. Most of the models agree for Alabama it is going to be around April 19 or 20 or 21, something like that. But what we really don’t know is what the magnitude of that peak is going to be.”
“So, on the IHME model, for example — we may need 300 or 400 additional beds in Alabama around that time in the hospital,” he continued. “And that’s something our hospital capacity can easily absorb. But we 4,500 or 5,000, and that’s not something we can so easily accommodate. So, there’s a lot of uncertainty, and we’re just doing our best to be prepared, so whenever that comes, we’ll be able to make the best of it.”
Harris credited the health orders implemented by his office and Gov. Kay Ivey’s office of shelter-in-place and stay-at-home for the modeling showing a favorable trend for Alabama.
“The cases that we’re going to be seeing in Alabama around [April] 20 or 21 or 22,” Harris added. “A lot of those people are already infected. Some of them may not be, but they may be getting infected this weekend. And then it will be eight days, or 10 days, or 12 days later when that becomes apparent. So we really need people to follow these social distancing guidelines that we put out. It will make a difference. And we know the long people stay apart, the less absolute cases that we’re going to have.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Huntsville’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN.
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