Nashville has moved to a less restrictive phase of reopening. Bars will be allowed to add more capacity, transportainment operations can restart, event/wedding/funeral venues can reopen at one-third capacity but capped at 125 people, and restaurants can resume bar and counter service.
The Tennessee Department of Health sent out a preemptive note yesterday to explain a spike in numbers tied to a prison outbreak but also said to expect higher caseloads over the next several days due to a "disruption in laboratory reporting since Friday" of last week.
Metro Nashville
As of 9:30 today, the city reported 26,019 confirmed cases, an increase of 44 over the last 24 hours, continuing a trend of decreasing case counts. There are currently 1,380 active cases in Nashville (down 20 since yesterday), 24,400 individuals who have recovered and 130 active hospitalizations (up 1 since yesterday). With 239 deaths (up 2 in the last 24 hours), the city has a case fatality rate of 0.91%.
In Davidson County, 217,103 tests have been administered with a positive rate of 12% (down from 12.4% at the beginning of August). Of note, the 7-day average for positive tests is 8.8% as of today.
On the trend lines, Nashville continues to have 5 out of 8 in the green with the remaining three in the yellow. With a goal for transmission to be less than 1.0, the city has a current transmission rate of 0.81, keeping the trend line in the green. 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.
As of 9:30 am this morning, hospital floor bed capacity remained in the yellow with 16% availability (down from 17% availability yesterday). ICU beds also remained in the yellow with 14% capacity (a slight improvement from the 13% availability yesterday). The goal for both hospital and ICU bed capacity is 20%.
The New Cases per 100K Residents remains in the yellow this week. The goal of the seven-day rolling average is to be at 10 or below. Currently, Nashville sits at 16.7 on this metric (down from 17.8 yesterday). The goal for the 7-Day Positivity Rate is to see a figure at 10% or less. Currently, Nashville remains in the green with a rate of 8.8% as of 9:30 this morning.
More detailed data is available on the Metro Dashboard. Click here for details.
Nashville moved to a less restrictive modified Phase 2 of the reopening plan on Sept. 1. Masks are required in Nashville, and a number of other surrounding counties also have mandatory mask regulations, although some of those are beginning to expire (looking at you Williamson County). 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
The state reports 156,329 confirmed cases of COVID-19, an increase of 1,396 cases since yesterday. There have been 6,978 hospitalized (an increase of 100 in 24 hours), 1,781 deaths (up 27 since yesterday) and 118,885 Tennesseans have recovered from the virus (up 2,021 since yesterday). The state has conducted just over 2.2 million tests (up 16,633 in 24 hours). Tennessee's COVID-19 death rate stands at 1.14%.