Alabama town declares COVID state of emergency ahead of Trump's upcoming rally

As former President Donald Trump prepares to visit Cullman, Ala., for an upcoming Republican rally on Saturday, the city has declared a health-related state of emergency due to the resurgence of COVID-19.

Due to the recent resurgence of COVID, Alabama is struggling to mitigate the spread of the virus as hospital systems face bed shortages due to increases in the hospitalizations of COVID patients. Speaking to AL.com, Luke Satterfield, an attorney for the city of Cullman, recently spoke out about the steps the city is taking to prevent more strain on the state's hospital systems.

"We want to prevent as many non-Covid related things as possible, so our hospital can use its resources to focus on the pandemic and its variants," Satterfield said. "We don't want to put any extra strain on them."

The announcement comes after Alabama's COVID report on Wednesday, August 18. The state reported 3,890 new COVID-19 cases and now has a seven-day fluctuating average of approximately 3,000 new cases, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) COVID data tracking system.

Despite the alarming rise in COVID cases in the area, NBC News 15 reports that thousands of individuals are expected to attend the rally. "We think the hotels are going to be booked out and we think this is going to be something, people are going to come from all over the state," said Waid Harbison, Former Chair of the Cullman County Republican Party.

Harbison went on to note that those planning to attend understand the risk, as well.

"Nobody's of course forcing anybody to come. If anybody doesn't feel like they need to be there. They have somebody that they care about that might be more at risk or something like that, of course there's no reason for them to come," Harbison said. "We feel like it's not gonna be that big of an issue really, because it's an outdoor event and because a lot of people are vaccinated right now."