March 27 - During the mid-morning Nashville press briefing, Mayor John Cooper announced the second Davidson County death, a 67-year-old man with underlying health conditions. Following a morning meeting with Governor Bill Lee, Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey and other members of the Coronavirus Unified Command, Mayor Cooper announced testing supplies would be in hand quickly so that Nashville's additional assessment sites should be up and running in the next 48-72 hours.
Board of Health Chairman Alex Jahangir, MD, MMHC, FACS, updated Nashville case numbers, noting there are now 312 confirmed cases, an increase of 20 cases over the last 24 hours. Of the current cases, 255 are active cases, 12 are hospitalized, 55 have recovered and two have died.
James E.K. Hildreth, PhD, MD, president and CEO of Meharry Medical College, discussed the ongoing importance of protecting the T-zones of the face, hand-washing and the need for continued 'safe at home' measures. He also stressed the need for enhanced testing so that public health officials would have key data to assess the pandemic ... both in the current arc and in retrospective.