Alabama is apparently headed in the right direction in its fight against coronavirus, the state’s top health official said.

Speaking Tuesday at a press conference with Gov. Kay Ivey, State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said there are 400 people currently hospitalized in Alabama due to COVID-19 with another 600 awaiting test results. State hospitals are able to handle that number of cases and are equipped with an adequate number of ventilators, he said. Personal protective equipment is more of a challenge, however, due to a worldwide shortage.

The number of coronavirus cases in Alabama is expected to peak in the coming week but Harris said facilities are ready for an inflow of patients.

“Our projections look a lot better than we thought when we were talking about this a month ago,” Harris said. “Whatever surge we see in the next week or so can be handled in the four walls of our hospitals which is exactly what we would like to see.

“At the moment, the numbers look as good as we have seen them, so we are very encouraged by that,” he said.

Harris attributed the change to people “by and large” following the stay-at-home order issued earlier this month. The state order is in place until at least the end of April.

Modeling projections on the spread of coronavirus and the strain it will place on hospitals has changed dramatically in recent days. One of the most cited studies, conducted by Washington-state based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, has lowered the projected COVID-19 death rate in Alabama from a high of 5,516 by May 16 to 351 coronavirus deaths by Aug. 4. Alabama has a little more than 100 coronavirus deaths as of today.

As the number of cases in Alabama appears to be plateauing, ADPH said it is shifting resources into contact tracing to identify those who have been exposed to coronavirus patients. Employees from other parts of the agency are being shift to that department. The number of personnel conducting tracing has quadrupled and will be increased once more people are trained, Harris added.