RELATED: Dr. Fauci Says We’ll Be “Close to Back to Normal” by This Exact Date. Out of all 50 states, Alabama just experienced the biggest surge in COVID cases with a 115 percent increase in daily cases over the last seven days, according to data from The Washington Post. At the same time, the state has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country: about 27.6 percent of Alabamans are fully vaccinated as of May 18, per CDC data compiled by Becker’s Hospital Review. (By comparison, the state with the most residents vaccinated is Connecticut at 48.7 percent.)ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Officials say supply is not the issue in Alabama—it’s demand. WBRC, a local Fox News affiliate in the state, just reported on May 17 that Alabama has nearly 1.3 million doses of the COVID vaccine waiting to be used. “We have vaccine on every corner right now in the state of Alabama. It’s just a matter of people coming out, taking the opportunity to protect themselves against this deadly virus,” Karen Landers, MD, deputy health officer with the Alabama Department of Public Health, told WBRC. Last week, Mississippi saw the second largest spike in COVID cases in the country, behind Alabama. According to data from The Washington Post, over the last seven days, Mississippi has experienced a 27 percent increase in daily cases. The state has also vaccinated the lowest percentage of its population out of all 50 states. According to the data compiled by Becker’s Hospital Review, just 25.8 percent of Mississippi residents are fully vaccinated. Vaccine hesitancy is incredibly rampant in the Magnolia State. A Morning Consult poll revealed that Mississippi has the highest share of vaccine hesitant residents in the country with about 34 percent of Mississippians unwilling to get the COVID vaccine. RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter. The correlation between states with low vaccination rates and COVID spikes is something medical experts and U.S. officials have been concerned about. On May 17, President Joe Biden warned about the possibility for COVID “flare-ups” in states with low vaccination rates. “We know there will be advances and setbacks, and we know that there are many flare-ups that could occur,” Biden said during a White House press conference addressing the nation’s progress in the fight against COVID. “But if the unvaccinated get vaccinated, they will protect themselves and other unvaccinated people around them.” On May 13, the CDC announced one of its biggest guideline changes yet by saying that fully vaccinated individuals no longer need to wear masks indoor or outdoors under most circumstances. The change has prompted almost every state with mask mandates still in place to lift them in some capacity, or at least, announce an upcoming date when they will be officially lifted (save for New Jersey). However, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, says while lifting mask mandates is safe for fully vaccinated people in most situations, it’s not necessarily the right course of action for all states. “I want to make sure everybody understands … we’re not a homogeneous country,” Walensky told Fox News’s Chris Wallace during a May 16 interview. “There are some places that have more disease than others and less vaccination rates than others, and what I would say is in those communities, they should still be looking within those communities before removing mask policies.” RELATED: 99 Percent of People Hospitalized for COVID in 2021 Have This in Common.
