As covid cases and hospitalizations continue to rise, doctors are warning people that the delta variant “isn’t last year’s covid,” and encouraging vaccinations against serious illness.

Dr. Scott Warner, who serves as the health official for the city of Cullman, said in a video Monday, “Within the last seven days we’ve had nearly 100 people test positive for covid in Cullman.”

Across Alabama, the number of positive cases is increasing as well, as are hospitalizations. From Aug. 8 to Aug. 9, the number of people reported hospitalized in Alabama with covid increased by 170, up to 2,134.

“The rate of infection has risen from less than three cases in 100,000 people from four weeks ago to more than 54 cases per 100,000 people this week,” said Warner. “That is a dramatic increase.” 

He said the increase is now being seen in younger people who are less likely to be vaccinated. “Ninety-nine percent of the deaths are occurring in unvaccinated people,” said Warner. “That is not a made-up number. It is very striking and says a lot.”

Alabama is among the states with the lowest vaccination rates.

One of the factors driving the increase in covid cases is the ability of the delta variant to spread through the population. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of UAB’s division of infectious diseases, said, “The delta variant is much more infectious than any virus that we have had to deal with as a routine respiratory virus in the population in our lifetime.”

“Delta is not last year’s covid,” said Warner. “It is sweeping across the United States at astonishing speed.”

He said that while the vaccines were created to prevent the spread of the coronavirus that began circulating last year, they have also proven effective at preventing serious disease and death from the delta variant.

“According to new estimates, the number of COVID-19 deaths that have been prevented just by the vaccines that we have received, let alone those that we could have received, are hundreds of thousands of Americans are now alive that wouldn’t have been had the vaccine not been available,” he said. “We are pleased with the results of the vaccine even in the low numbers it has been used, so imagine what it would be if people had adhered to common sense recommendations.”

The increase in community spread of the disease led Cullman Regional Medical Center to announce it was no longer allowing visitors in to the Emergency Department. The hospital previously announced a return to a one-visitor-per-patient policy hospital-wide. 

Warner said the increase in covid cases is frustrating for health care workers.

“Almost all of these cases are now considered preventable. That’s particularly troublesome to health care workers who struggle valiantly . . . to take care of people whose hospitalization and death could have otherwise been prevented,” he said.  

“Almost all of these cases are now considered preventable.”