Any ideas why Alabama is projected to have more total COVID-19 deaths, 7,334, than any other state besides New York at 16,090? (Download summary of April 2, 2020 COVID-19 estimates) ... and to have far and away the #1 highest per capita deaths in the entire USA according to the University of Washington model?... yeah, that's the model that's been adopted as the main one the White House and CDC are using to project around 100K+ deaths nationwide.

I mean I know Bear, Nick, and the Tide have gotten us used to being #1, but come on! We're not even in the top 25 for deaths per capita now and we'll end up being a runaway #1?  Maybe King COVID saw us laughing at this popular meme and decided to grant some payback for laughing it off?

Digging into the projections shows that would be 1 person dying for every 668 residents. New York is a distant 2nd at 1:1209 and Tennessee is third at 1:2095. For comparison, California is only projected to have 1 death for every 7655 of their residents and Oregon at 1:7623 and Vermont at fewer than 1 death for ever 10000 residents.

I would really like to know what they're gauging and factoring in to get those figures. Especially since Alabama currently has a current COVID tally of 333 cases per Million residents  (toggle on the different tabs at the  map at that link to see how different states are doing). That's about 17 times lower than New York's current prevalence and lower than all the neigbhoring states around us. And in death rates we're actually among the lowest in the nation at 8.9 deaths per Million  residents right now... better than any adjacent state other than Tennessee who sits at 7.3/Mil.

Alabama is among the lowest testers nationwide and have only done about 2200 tests per Million residents (beating out only MS, TX, and OK). Maybe the model assumes many more uncovered cases that just aren't being identified, but are being spread.  Our positive test rate is 15%. (MI 55%, OK 46%, NJ 43%, NY 40%, GA 24%, MS 22%, ID 19%, UT 5%, there are a few northern states at around 3%)

Some other possible factors for Alabama being so high?: Unhealthy population with lots of co-morbidities? Evidence of poor social distancing? Lack of ICU beds in much of the state?  Don't see how this is any worse than Mississippi or Arkansas, or most of Georgia...

On social distancing scorecards (both based on tracking GPS data through our phones... not creepy at all, right?):

1) the one that came out last week, from Unacast (that one was fraught with some very bad assumptions and conclusions in my opinion)  but Alabama received an F, along with a few other states.

2) Google's been watching us too and gave a scorecard where Alabama is definitely below the national average, but not anywhere near the bottom. 

I'm rather perplexed by this projection and truly hope we're not on that trajectory. I'm not trying to stoke fear, nor do I want to minimize the potential threat, but I would really like to know what they're seeing in their modeling. Post other thoughts in comments please.

Honestly though, it sort of makes me question their methodology somewhat. Did they assume that, because there wasn't a statewide lockdown (until yesterday) that people weren't doing much social distancing? The vast majority of the state population-wise has been under lockdown orders for more than a week I believe. Definitely confused but trying to figure out if I should be more worried or skeptical about this....

Thoughts?