Yesterday, Vanderbilt Department of Health Policy released two new graphic representations of the growing COVID-19 caseload by age and by hospitalizations in Tennessee.

The heat map shows concentrations of new cases by age and visually illustrates the rising number of cases in younger populations. The second graph displays current hospitalizations, as of July 15, 2020, which eclipsed 1,000 on Wednesday, based on the department's data analysis. Officials with Vanderbilt Department of Health Policy noted the rise is consistent with projections released April 24, which modeled the time it would take to reach this level of concurrent hospitalizations if the transmission number (R) rose to 1.2 (approximately where it now stands statewide).

Melinda Buntin, PhD, Mike Curb Professor of Health Policy and Chair, Department of Health Policy, said the following: "Unfortunately, the takeaways this week are that we have eclipsed 1,000 hospitalizations statewide, which is troubling, and that new cases are hitting in a wider range of age groups, represented in the charts."