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Alabama, and nation, to end emergency alert for COVID-19

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The COVID-19 national emergency is set to end today. President Joe Biden signed a resolution terminating the response to the coronavirus pandemic. The public health alert may be over, but the danger is not gone. That’s according to Doctor Wes Stubblefield. He’s District Medical Officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health. Stubblefield says he’s optimistic that the early ending to the national alert is a positive sign…

“That because we have widespread immunity either from vaccination infection or both that we are better protected than than we were in the past,” Stubblefield said. “And that these mutations over time have shown us that they've become although more easily transmitted from one person to another less severe on a on a general scale.”

Alabama’s COVID-19 dashboard hub currently lists Wilcox County as having a medium community level of Coronavirus cases. The rest of the state is marked as low. Stubblefield says there were certain events that led up to the president’s decision to end the alert…

“The conditions have changed. The virus has changed. We know more. We we have vaccine we have widespread knowledge about the way Covid 19 spreads. And and that information is available to the public,” he said.

Dr. Stubblefield says the ending of the state of national emergency is a step in the right direction to returning to a post pandemic world.

Hadley Elsesser is a student intern in the Alabama Public Radio Newsroom. She is a sophomore at the University of Alabama studying public relations, communication studies and criminal justice. She hopes to acquire a career in liaising for government and law enforcement or investigative reporting. Even though she is not an Alabama native, Hadley enjoys the warm weather the Yellowhammer state brings. She says it is a nice change of pace from the snow in Michigan.

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