Breaking; Mayor John Cooper extends Nashville's safer-at-home order "at least" another week. Davidson County to remain under current restrictions until May 8. A release from Metro officials stated, "The order has been extended because the key public health metrics are not stable enough to begin reopening the city safely."
The Nashville website, www.asafenashville.org, now includes a color-coded key on the status of key metrics that will lead to the reopening of the city. While public health, testing, and hospital bed capacities are all in the satisfactory range (green), the transmission rate and 14-day new case trend are in the cautionary yellow code, which means 'less than satisfactory.'
Last week, Mayor Cooper released his 'Roadmap for Reopening Nashville.' For a summary and access to the full plan, see https://www.nashvillemedicalnews.com/article/3127/mayor-cooper-outlines-roadmap-for-reopening
In response to the mayor's announcement, Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, president and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, released the following statement: "Mayor Cooper's extension of Nashville's Safer at Home Order follows the recommendations in Nashville's April 23 Roadmap for Reopening, as we are seeing increased new COVID-19 cases in Davidson County in recent days. The Roadmap offers our best chance of success in achieving a sustained reopening of the economy in Nashville."
On Thursday morning, Nashville reported 2,669 confirmed cases, an increase of 57 over the past 24 hours and a jump of nearly 500 new cases in less than a week. An additional death was reported in Davidson County, raising the total to 25 deaths now attributed to COVID-19 in Nashville. On the plus side, 1,411 Nashvillians have recovered from the virus. After a slight decline in the rate of positives from testing the rate has moved back up to 10.5% (from a recent low two days ago of 10.3%)
Tennessee State
Thursday numbers for the state will be updated in the afternoon.
On Wednesday, Tennessee reported 10,366 confirmed COVID-19 cases, a jump of 314 in 24 hours. Number of deaths rose to 195 (increase of 7 in a day), 1,013 hospitalizations (an increase of 132 in 24 hours), and 5,140 recovered (an increase of 219 since Tuesday). Additionally, the state has tested 168,549 Tennesseans, an increase of 6,621 between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Drive-through testing will be available again this coming weekend, May 2-3.