Alabama, like many other states, is going through an unprecedented COVID emergency. In wealthy Baldwin County on the East side of Mobile Bay and the beaches, cases went from 25-30 a week in mid-July, to over 250 a week in the second week of August. This 100% vaccinated writer was unaware of the countywide jump because I was laid upside down by COVID – though I never got short of breath or considered going to the hospital.

Good thing because there are no hospital beds. They are now rationing. Evidently, Cullman, Alabama, has the same issue and declared a COVID emergency today, perhaps to just give a “heads-up” to the hundreds going to Trump’s rally scheduled for tomorrow:

Cullman, Ala., on Thursday declared a COVID-19-related state of emergency ahead of a scheduled Alabama GOP rally featuring former President Trump on Saturday as Alabama struggles with a surge in new infections and a shortage of hospital beds. 

The state of emergency declaration allows the city to provide additional resources for the rally, a request that was made by the chief operating office of Cullman Regional Medical Center, which is experiencing overcrowding amid a spike in coronavirus-related hospitalizations.

Alabama saw 3,890 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, with a seven-day moving average of about 3,000 new infections, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid Data Tracker. Cullman Regional’s latest update on Wednesday showed that the hospital was treating 56 coronavirus patients, including 12 people who are on ventilators.

Let’s make this very clear. Cullman is not a big town. It has 18,000 people and is midway between Birmingham and Huntsville (which is surely why it was chosen). Bring a few hundred unvaxed and unmasked MAGAs to town and put them together in an arena or whatever to scream for Trump and you have a super spreader event in a state in which COVID has already super spread.

This rally, like several before, will end up putting people in the ground. Trump is that sick. There is still a chance he won’t go through with it, or the town will cancel it, but given past patterns, there are doubts.

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