MONTGOMERY, Ala (AP) – Alabama now ranks fourth in the country for the most new COVID-19 cases per capita, as medical officials hoped full federal approval of the Pfizer vaccine will persuade people to get vaccinated.
According to numbers compiled by Johns Hopkins University, Alabama ranked behind Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida,for the most new cases per capita in the past 14 days.
“The Gulf states are pretty much continuing to be on fire,” Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The FDA gave full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine Monday, potentially boosting public confidence in the shots. Alabama has one of the lowest vaccinations rates in the country, ranking slightly below Mississippi in the percentage of people fully vaccinated.
Dr. Paul Goepfert, director of the Alabama vaccine research clinic, said it will be hard to predict the impact of the approval, but added it might improve the vaccination rates by a few percentage points.