The number of COVID-19 patients at UAB fell slightly this week to 52, from a high of 62 patients last Thursday.

It’s a faint ray of sunshine for a hospital that’s been hardest hit in Alabama by the coronavirus epidemic, with patient numbers shooting from 1 to 62 the previous week.

But Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, an infectious disease physician at UAB, cautioned against reading too much into the slight decline in patient numbers.

“If we have been able to…flatten the curve, that would be fantastic,” she said. “I think it’s too early to say.”

In addition to those 52 COVID-19 patients, UAB has another 30 to 50 patients each day who are classified as “under investigation” for potentially having COVID-19. About one-third of UAB’s covid patients are seriously ill in the ICU.

Elsewhere around the state, numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients aren’t high, but they are rising. At East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika, another hot spot, the number of confirmed, hospitalized COVID-19 patients rose from 22 on Sunday to 30 by Wednesday. The number of suspected patients nearly doubled in that time, from 12 to 23.

Dr. Don Williamson, president of the Alabama Hospital Association, said he’s been looking specifically at hospital occupancy rates around the state. Those are creeping steadily higher. They’d been artificially lower since hospitals canceled elective surgeries in recent weeks to create more bedspace for COVID-19 patients. Right now, hospitals statewide are hovering around 59% capacity, he said.

“Yesterday (occupancy rates) were a little higher than they were the day before,” he said. “Some of it’s COVID. Some of it is patients under investigation who have a flu-like illness.

“We think we’ll have a much better handle on it this time next week, in terms of what the curve looks like.”

Williams and Marrazzo said they’re looking at COVID-19 projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the same projections now cited by White House advisers.

According to that data, the coronavirus epidemic is expected to peak nationally on April 16, and in Alabama less than a week later.

The projections also show that Alabama could run out of existing hospital beds as soon as April 3. An updated projection released Wednesday afternoon showed Alabama could see more than 7,000 COVID-19 deaths by August, with a peak daily high of 341 deaths on April 22.

“I think it’s a model we have to pay very close attention to,” said Marrazzo. But she said, the model doesn’t take into account all of Alabama’s social distancing measures. “I think that model is a worst-case scenario that I hope and pray very much we are going to avoid, given the cooperation we’ve had from our local government, our excellent public health department and really from the community at large.”

Williams said if infection rates stay low, that would show social distancing and other measures, like closing schools and nonessential businesses, were working.

“Nothing would make us happier than to see those numbers stay flat,” he said. “I just unfortunately can’t think of a reason why Alabama would somehow be spared a surge.”