Multiple students under COVID-19 isolation at the University of Alabama told me they never saw a medical professional & UA did no contact tracing after they tested positive. But UA has officers patrolling isolation dorms' parking lots & entrances 24/7. al.com/news/2020/09/y…
UA freshman Caleb Overstreet said since his diagnosis he hasn’t “been contacted by anyone medically. I guess if I couldn’t breathe I’d try to find my way to the hospital ... They didn’t give me any instruction; they basically just stuck me here and haven’t been in touch since.”
UA freshman Cody Brooks: "I've had to personally contact everyone that I’ve been exposed to. When I tested positive, they didn’t ask me who I had been exposed to. I think it needs to be done sooner if it is being done, just because I had been exposed to so many people already.”
And students who've tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days say it's difficult to get someone on the phone via UA's coronavirus hotline. Some students feel like UA - which had >1,200 new student COVID cases in 9 days - is just warehousing them while the outbreak rages on.
Alex Thill, however, is a healthy UA junior. Late last month, UA quickly filled many apartments in his on-campus complex w/ students under COVID-19 isolation.
Ever since, Thill says police have continuously patrolled the parking lot of his apartment complex 24/7, stopping people and making sure they're not breaking isolation. It's unclear exactly what punishment students might face for leaving the premises.
UA freshman Cody Brooks said the person posted at the entrance to Burke West, the UA COVID-19 isolation dorm where he is currently living, is tasked with stopping students from leaving.
There's tons more detail in my story for @aldotcom, which covers everything from how & what students living in UA's isolation dorms are fed to how they manage their coursework. Thanks for reading. al.com/news/2020/09/y…
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Citing a “long history of serious deficiencies,” ICE has announced it will not longer house immigration detainees in the Etowah County jail al.com/news/2022/03/i…
This announcement comes six years after ICE toured the Alabama facility and issued a report detailing numerous failings including safety concerns and subpar food and health care. ice.gov/doclib/foia/od…
ICE’s announcement also comes four years after I reported that Etowah County’s former sheriff pocketed more than $1.5 million of federal money that was allocated to feed ICE detainees. al.com/news/2018/12/h…
Creeping on Charles Barkley at a COVID vaccination drive at Birmingham’s Legion Field just now. Story tk later today on @aldotcom.
Here’s more about the event if you’d like to come out and get the shot and meet Charles Barkley this afternoon. He’s been a prominent advocate for vaccination in Alabama and beyond.
Kabria Rembert, 20, said she got the vaccination here today because: “I’m young and I don’t have any underlying conditions, but I’ve got to take care of the people around me. I’m just trying not to be selfish.”
With mobile morgues in place in Mobile Co., AL’s health officer said today “there’s no room to put these bodies.” In March 2020, I wrote about AL’s mass-casualty plans. They include mass burials & cremations and temporary internments. A terrifying prospect al.com/news/2020/03/w…
Worth noting: These plans are still up on the AL Dept of Public Health website. And the ADPH’s general counsel told me last March “Alabama will continue to follow its disaster and pandemic planning documents, according each individual respect and dignity.” alabamapublichealth.gov/pandemicflu/as…
Here’s the slide deck for a 2009 presentation state health officer Scott Harris led to educate coroners on what their roles would be if there were to be a high-casualty pandemic. One slide is titled “Mass burial planning.” It’s still up on ADPH’s website. alabamapublichealth.gov/CEP/assets/Fat…
Tonight, Alabama has zero open ICU beds. Worth remembering that until last March, AL had a discriminatory protocol in place advising hospitals low on ventilators to take patients w/ certain diagnoses & disabilities off vents to free them up for others. 1/7 al.com/news/2020/03/l…
The protocol stated that during a worst-case scenario pandemic, Alabama hospitals should “not offer mechanical ventilator support for patients” w/ any of a long list of medical issues and intellectual disabilities. 2/7
Four days after I reported on the existence of the protocol, which the state health department later said was only a suggestion, the U.S. Dept of Health & Human Service’s Civil Rights Office issued a bulletin warning states against discriminatory ventilator triage practices. 3/7
Random Alabama factoid that still blows my mind 3 years after I found out about it: The municipal laws for municipalities in 18 counties are not available on any state website and the state does not have them in any digital format. 1/3
I was told this is because the state's contract to have them digitized ran out after Mobile County. The laws - *which are part of the state code* - were being digitized county by county in alphabetical order. So Mobile County is online, but Monroe, Montgomery, etc. are not. 2/3
When I needed to look through them for a story, there was no official way to access the text of all the municipal laws in the state w/o physically going to each county. I eventually tracked down a paper copy of the full state code at the 3rd law school I called. Good times. 3/3
Update on my March reporting for @propublica & @aldotcom: In multiple Alabama counties, ppl w/ >2 felony convictions are still being charged w/ failing to register as repeat felons & failing to present "felon ID" to police, crimes punishable by up to a year in jail & fines. 1/6
Alabama is the only state w/ state laws requiring 3-time felons to register & carry "felon ID," which even most lawyers & felons have never heard of. Ppl do end up serving real jail time for violating the laws, which are only enforced in some counties. 2/6 propublica.org/article/a-litt…
As a result of my reporting on this arbitrary regime, some Alabama sheriffs said they'd only enforce the laws in tandem w/ other charges. But ppl are still being punished for violating them alone. And the tally mounts, w/ hundreds of people arrested on the charges since 2014. 3/6