Breaking: Governor Lee Moves to Reopen Much of Tennessee, Mayor Cooper Concerned about Recent Spike

Tennessee State

On April 20, Governor Lee announced he would allow his Safer at Home order to expire on April 30th for most counties. With the exception of 6 counties - Davidson, Hamilton, Knox, Madison, Shelby & Sullivan - the other 89 counties will be free to reopen for business come May 1. "Social distancing must continue, but our economic shutdown cannot," Lee said. However, he stressed a new normal would include protective measures and social distancing regulations that aligned with guidance from both state and national business and medical experts. Some businesses will be allowed to open as early as next Monday, April 27th and state parks will reopen this Friday.

In a statement, Lee said, "Social distancing works, and as we open up our economy it will be more important than ever that we keep social distancing as lives and livelihoods depend on it." The governor was previously disappointed when his stay-at-home suggestion wasn't voluntarily embraced as widely as he had hoped, which led to turning the suggestion into an order. It remains to be seen if people will follow social distancing best practices once businesses begin to reopen in the next 7-10 days.

Tennessee now has 7,238 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 152 deaths statewide. There have been at least 730 hospitalizations for COVID-19 across the state, which equals 13% of known cases at this point. Additionally, the state reports 3,575 individuals have recovered. Breakdowns by gender show 50.3% of cases are female, 46.5% male and 3.2% of cases are pending identification. By race, currently 47% of those with COVID-19 are white, black or African American 21%, multiracial or other 6%, Asian 2% and pending 24%.

After spiking on April 16th, the tend line of daily case counts has plateaued or trended downward over the last four days. Over the weekend, 33 drive-through testing sites across the state provided 11,200 tests. Those results are not yet available. Drive-through testing will be available again this coming weekend and May 2-3.

Metro Nashville

Nashville now reports 1,903 confirmed cases, an increase of 152 in the past 24 hours and jump of more than 400 over the span of the last five days. The number of deaths has risen to 20, while 875 individuals have recovered and 1,008 cases remain active. The number of positive results has now risen to nearly 11% (10.7%) of tests taken. To date, 17,773 tests have been administered with 1,903 coming back positive. The city's breakdown of those with confirmed COVID-19 by race are white 49%, black or African American 13%, multiracial or other 12%, Asian 3% and pending 15%.

Nashville's community assessment system is available to everyone in Nashville free of charge. Those who believe they have COVID-19 symptoms should call the hotline at 615.862.7777, open 7 days a week from 7 am-7 pm.

Mayor John Cooper expressed concern over the jump in confirmed cases and said he expected to extend his 'safer at home' order. Nashville is working with Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga on a large cities task force to best determine how and when to relax social distancing measures. None of the state's largest cities were included in Governor Lee's announcement of pending reopenings.