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The relief that EAMC and other Alabama hospitals have been hoping for is finally being felt. EAMC saw its COVID-19 hospitalizations drop down to 74 Wednesday morning, a week after peaking at 92. Meanwhile, hospitalizations across Alabama have also scaled down over the past 10 days. Alabama hospitals peaked at 3,084 on Jan. 11 but had decreased to 2,522 as of Wednesday morning. “This is a good start, but it’s definitely not time to celebrate,” said John Atkinson, EAMC spokesman. “This is the start of hospitals recovering from the gatherings related to the holiday season,”

Atkinson said Dr. (Ricardo) Maldonado weighed in today during the hospital’s COVID Committee meeting regarding the well-known COVID prevention measures.

“Like the rest of us, he was pleased with the decline in hospitalizations, but reminded us of the variant strains of the virus, and how they are more contagious and have been detected in neighboring states,” Atkinson said. “He really wanted to stress the importance of distancing from each other and avoiding gatherings where masks are not worn, even if that is a wedding or other church service.”

In addition, it’s important to wear masks at all other times when you are around people outside of your immediate household. The CDC says this includes even after you have been vaccinated. , “As we have said before, the vaccines give us great hope for this year, but we are still several months away from them playing a big role. We must take these extra precautions until then,” Atkinson said.