Hank Aaron, skeptic’s mea culpa, vaccine campouts: News from around our 50 states
From USA TODAY Network and wire reports, USA TODAY
Alabama
Birmingham: The mayors of at least three Alabama cities, including heavily populated Birmingham, have been diagnosed with COVID-19 as the illness spreads rapidly across the state following the holidays. The city of Birmingham said Mayor Randall Woodfin was admitted to a hospital with COVID-19 pneumonia Monday, five days after announcing he tested positive for the new coronavirus. Decatur Mayor Tab Bowling said he was quarantining at home after testing positive for the virus, and the city of Auburn said Mayor Ron Anders was in quarantine after testing positive. Bowling told the Decatur Daily he felt guilty about participating in holiday family gatherings with his adult children and their families over the holidays. Alabama on Monday hit a new high for the number of COVID-19 patients in state hospitals with more than 3,000 hospitalized. The new peak comes as health officials feared a new surge of cases in the wake of the winter holidays. There were a record 3,064 people in state hospitals Monday with COVID-19, according to numbers from the Alabama Department of Public Health.