There Were More Deaths Than Births In Alabama Last Year, A Grim First For The State

Doctor Scott Harris, Alabama’s State Health Officer, discusses his state’s vaccination data in his office on June 29, 2021, in Montgomery, Alabama. – A black minority suspicious of vaccines in general, and conservative white rural people convinced that the vaccine is more dangerous than Covid-19: Alabama and several southern states in the United States have … Continued

Elijah Nouvelage / AFP via Getty Images

In 2020, for the first time in recorded history, more people died in Alabama than were born in the state.

“Our state literally shrunk,” Dr. Scott Harris, the states top health official, said at a press briefing last week.

The state saw some 64,714 total deaths last year, Harris said, compared with about 57,641 births. Those numbers are preliminary, and officials will confirm them toward the end of this year.