While Nashville has seen several straight days with new cases under 100, the state's numbers jumped back up today. After the state logged only 813 new cases yesterday, that figure more than doubled today.

While Nashville has been on a downward trend for new cases and transmission rate, there is still concern over spikes if children return to school. Metro Schools Director Dr. Adrienne Battle made the recommendation that schools remain virtual through the end of the first quarter on October 1. Some students with special needs could return before the general population of students. Assuming there isn't a spike in case numbers, the plan would then be to begin a phased-in approach to in-person learning in early October. Dr. Battle cited the ongoing cases in the district, as well as the number of schools in other districts that reopened only to quickly close or have large numbers of students and staff quarantined, as the reason for waiting another month to reopen schools in Davidson County.

Metro Nashville

As of 9:30 today, the city reported 25,452 confirmed cases, an increase of 68 over the last 24 hours. There are currently 1,952 active cases in Nashville, 23,269 individuals who have recovered and 136 active hospitalizations (up 1 from yesterday). With 231 deaths (up 2 from yesterday), the city has a case fatality rate of 0.9%.

In Davidson County, 209,761 tests have been administered with a positive rate of 12.1% (down slightly from 12.4% at the beginning of August but up from 10.7% on July 1). Of note, the 7-day average for positive tests is 9.8% as of today (down from 10.8% last Friday).

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 0.87, 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 17% availability (down from 18% availability yesterday). ICU beds also remained in the yellow with 11% capacity (down from 13% 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 19.1 on this metric (down from 20.6 yesterday, 22.6 last Friday and 24.2 nearly a week ago). The goal for the 7-Day Positivity Rate is to see a figure at 10% or less. Currently, Nashville has made it into the green with a rate of 9.8% as of 9:30 this morning.

More detailed data is available on the Metro Dashboard. Click here for details.

Nashville remains in a modified Phase 2 of the reopening plan. Masks are required in Nashville, and a number of other surrounding counties also have 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

The state reports 147,353 confirmed cases of COVID-19, an increase of 1,936 cases since yesterday. There have been 6,603 hospitalized (an increase of 88 in 24 hours), 1,648 deaths (up 20 since yesterday) and 109,765 Tennesseans have recovered from the virus (up 1,730 since yesterday). The state has conducted nearly 2.1 million tests (up 27,382 in 24 hours). Tennessee's COVID-19 death rate stands at 1.12% (up from 1.05% at this time last week).