MADISON COUNTY, Ala — As of Friday afternoon, Alabama had 23,197 confirmed cases of covid-19, and 428 of those cases were in Madison County.
Dr. Karen Landers with the Alabama Department of Public Health addressed the uptick in statewide cases in Friday's weekly briefing.
"In some communities, there are people that say 'Well you know, I'll just go ahead and get covid. I'll get together with a group of people and socialize and party and get covid and recover and I'll be fine,' and this was very disturbing to me," she said.
Landers said the numbers are not what is most important either. She said the trends that go along with the rising case numbers is what health professionals are most concerned with at this time. Another big concern for health professionals is keeping the virus under control the best they can, and that cannot happen, according to Landers, without the community's cooperation.
"We talk about health care providers and first responders being health heroes, and being a health physician myself I appreciate that label. But all of us [community members] can be heroes here."
A lot of people are seemingly becoming weary throughout the process of abiding by social distancing guidelines, including health care workers. Dr. Landers said everyone needs to continuing listening to local leaders and not give up just yet.
Madison Mayor Paul Finely reflected the same remarks as Dr. Landers in Friday's briefing. He also added a few statistics that may be alarming for folks not taking the virus seriously.
"There's about a 10% chance that if you go into the hospital, unfortunately you won't come out," he continued, "And if you go into the ICU it's 1 in 3. So the goal is to make sure that doesn't happen and we need to continue to work as a community to make sure that doesn't happen."
Finley also added that both the state and Madison County have seen a 10% increase in case numbers this week alone. Although Madison County's hospitalization rate is still fairly low, he encouraged people to understand that staying home is for the safety of everyone around us.