Following a period of education and warnings, mask citations are now being written for those who fail to comply with the mandate in Nashville. At today's press briefing, Mayor John Cooper said mask compliance is having an impact on case numbers with the city moving in the right direction. Two new trend lines - New Cases/100 K Residents and 7-Day Positivity Rate - have been added to the key metrics being reported as part of the Roadmap for Reopening.
At the state level, Governor Bill Lee is expected to discuss school openings this afternoon.
Metro Nashville
Nashville reported 22,247 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of 9:30 this morning, an increase of 250 over the last 24 hours. There are currently 3,091 active cases in Nashville (down more than 400 since Tuesday), 18,952 individuals who have recovered and 179 active hospitalizations. With 204 deaths (up 2 since yesterday), the city has a case fatality rate of 0.92%.
In Davidson County, 179,119 tests have been administered with a positive rate of 12.4% (not as high as it has been but still up from 10.7% on July 1 and 9.4% on June 1). Of note, the 7-day average for positive tests is 11.5% as of today - up from 11.4% on Tuesday but down from 12.9% last Friday and 14.3% the Friday before that.
On the trend lines, the transmission rate is in the green. With a goal for transmission to be less than 1.0, the city has seen a rate of 0.99 for the last several days. The 14-day case rate is also in the green with a decreasing trend in new cases. Public health and testing capacity remain in the green, as they have throughout. Hospital floor bed capacity remains in the yellow with 15% available this morning at 9:30 am. ICU beds also remain in the yellow with 13% current capacity. The goal for both hospital and ICU bed capacity is 20%.
On the new trend lines, the New Cases per 100K Residents makes its debut in the red. The goal of the seven-day rolling average is to be at 10 or below (at which point the State of Tennessee will allow visitors to skilled nursing facilities). Currently, Nashville sits at 26.3 on this metric. The other new trend line is the 7-Day Positivity Rate (which we've been reporting for weeks as part of our day's data above). The goal is to see a 7-day positivity figure at 10% or less. Currently, Nashville is in the yellow with a rate of 11.5%.
More detailed data is available on the Metro Dashboard. Click here for details.
Masks are required in Nashville, and a number of other surrounding counties have also begun instituting mandatory mask regulations. Additionally, public health officials continue to ask (beg) residents to be vigilant in maintaining social distancing measures, as well as to go out as little as possible, wash hands frequently and stay home if ill. Metro police are authorized to issue civil citations to those who fail to comply with the mask mandate unless the individual has a specific exemption.
Tennessee State
Tennessee now reports 116,350 confirmed cases of COVID-19, up 2,252 since yesterday. To date, 77,558 Tennesseans have recovered (an increase of 2,008 in 24 hours) and 5,109 have been hospitalized (an increase of 108 since yesterday). The state also saw one of it's most deadly days with the death toll now hitting 1,186 ... an increase of 42 deaths in a 24-hour period. The state has administered 1,633,642 tests (up 23,038 in a day).