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Rendi Murphree, the director of the Bureau for Disease Surveillance and Environmental Services with the Mobile County Public Health Department, provides an update on the COVID-19 crisis during a news conference on Friday, March 20, 2020, at the Health Department in Mobile, Ala. Murphree has delivered hundreds of Facebook Live updates since the beginning of the pandemic. For the first time in 30 days, she provided a new update on COVID-19 during a Facebook Live session on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com).
Mobile County hospitals have seen a 25% rise in hospitalizations over the past week and emergency rooms are seeing an increase of people with a mix of flu-like and COVID-19 symptoms.
And with the omicron variant as a looming threat, the director of the Mobile County Health Department’s Bureau of Disease Surveillance and Environmental Services took to Facebook on Wednesday to provide an update on the latest about COVID-19.
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It was the first time that Dr. Rendi Murphree has returned to the cameras in a month for an update on Facebook. Murphree, an epidemiologist, has delivered hundreds of live updates on the social media platform since the pandemic began in March 2020.
“It was one month ago today that I said we would stop doing updates and we’d come back to you if there was new information or if things change,” Murphree said. “You have seen the news.”
The discovery of the omicron variant on November 24, has sparked widespread attention since it is believed to have a high number of mutations and can spread more easily than the delta variant that ravaged through Alabama and the rest of the South in July, August and early September.
The first U.S. case was announced earlier on Wednesday when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Public Health and the San Francisco Department of Public Health confirmed a traveler who visited South Africa on November 22, tested positive for COVID-19. That individual, according to national media reports, has had mild symptoms and was fully vaccinated.
“We are so early in what we know about the variant,” said Murphree. “There is more we don’t know than we do know. But the number of countries it’s been detected in is changing by the hour. The scientific community is working to determine transmissibility to determine the severity of the disease and to determine if our diagnostic tests will detect it or if our vaccines will affect it.”
She added, “Let’s try and not to speculate much or really make too many decisions based on the threat. Let’s be patient and let the data and science develop and be shared with us so we can make the best decisions.”
Murphree, though, said she anticipates the omicron variant spreading through the U.S. and arriving to Alabama, adding that “history has shown us that when variants start spreading around the world like this, we are not immune. The U.S. was the epicenter for the delta variant for a long time.”
Alabama was a hot spot for the delta variant in August, led by Mobile County which was devastated by the virus that overwhelmed hospitals for weeks. The region reached a high of 486 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 on August 17. At one point, a federal strike team had to locate to South Baldwin Regional Medical Center in Foley to assist crews overrun by sickened patients.
A majority of those who were hospitalized were unvaccinated, and statistics show that while Alabama’s vaccination has improved since the summer, it remains among the lowest in the nation. According to the New York Times vaccine tracker, the state has the fourth-lowest overall vaccine rate with 46% of the population fully vaccinated. In Mobile County, 45.2% of the overall population is vaccinated, according to CDC figures.
Murphree encouraged people to get vaccinated and to receive a booster shot ahead of omicron’s spread.
For now, she said she’s pleased that the county’s overall infection numbers are low even if more than 20 people have been hospitalized with COVID-19 over the past couple of days, a jump from 12-15 a week ago.
“It might seem low but compared to the previous days and weeks, it’s a 25% increase and I’ll be keeping an eye on that,” Murphree said. “Just be smart when you are out in the community.”
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