Alabama Passes 500 COVID-19 Cases, 19 in Tuscaloosa County

The Alabama Department of Public Health confirmed the 500th case of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the state Thursday afternoon as testing for the virus improves and known cases continue to spike.

Last week, the ADPH updated their count of confirmed cases twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. They are now opting to update a map showing the spread of the pandemic in real time as cases are confirmed in more than 40 of Alabama's 67 counties.

Sometime after 3 o'clock Thursday afternoon, the counter surpassed 500 confirmed cases, more than double what was confirmed just two days ago.

At the time of writing, there are 148 confirmed cases in Jefferson County, 52 in Shelby County, 47 in Lee County and 43 in Madison County.

In West Alabama, there are 19 cases confirmed in Tuscaloosa County, 18 in Walker County, 7 in Marion County and 1 case in Lamar, Pickens and Marengo Counties.

There are no confirmed cases in Fayette, Bibb, Perry, Hale, Greene or Sumter Counties.

So far, the highly contagious virus has claimed one life in Alabama.

The ADPH has processed 4,082 tests of patients who show symptoms similar to COVID-19. 501 have tested positive.