Shades of red are no stranger to Alabama as fall nears, whether it’s for football, changing leaves or even politics. Unfortunately, it’s a color that has also become common on the Alabama Department of Public Health’s map for community spread of COVID-19.

Each county in the state remains as red as it was two weeks ago, meaning all 67 counties remain at high risk for community spread of COVID-19. The delta variant remains the most common throughout the state.

Confirmed cases are most prominent among the 25–49-year-old age group, though deaths from COVID-19 are more common among those 50 and older. Hospitalizations continue to increase, jumping from around 200 on July 4 to nearly 3,000 this week.

However, Limestone County has managed to so far avoid reaching the records set in January and is actually on the decrease again. The daily number of new cases reported reached 86 on Aug. 16 but has mostly stayed well below that number since. Meanwhile, the seven-day average rose to nearly 70 on Aug. 18 but had dropped to 44 little more than a week later.

Still, nearly 1 of every 5 Limestone Countians who get tested gets a positive result, and an additional six have died from complications brought on by the disease in the last two weeks. The county also added almost 1,000 new cases in that time, bringing the total since March 2020 to 12,241.

According to the newly released census data, that means about 0.16% of the population living in Limestone County as of Census Day 2020 has since died of COVID-19. About 11.8% has been reported as a confirmed or probable case of infection.