Yesterday, Mayor Cooper announced a new executive order that will require restaurants and businesses serving alcohol to close down at 10 pm. While takeout order will still be allowed, the move is to keep people from congregating on the streets of downtown Nashville after scenes from last weekend made national news. In announcing the order, Cooper said, "A city that can't open schools smoothly is a city that can't be back to normal. Parents of more than 100,000 children and the children themselves need Nashville to break the spread of the disease and we must use the tools we have to get that done. If we have to tell 100,000 kids to stay home, we can tell businesses to close early."
Metro Nashville
As of this morning, Nashville reports 18,423 confirmed cases of COVID-19, an increase of 347 cases in the last 24 hours. There are currently 5,539 active cases in Nashville, 12,717 individuals who have recovered (up just shy of 900 since Monday), and 222 active hospitalizations (up 20 since Monday). With 167 deaths (up 8 from Monday), the city has a case fatality rate of 0.9%.
In Davidson County, 148,146 tests have been administered with a positive rate of 12.4% (up from 10.7% on July 1 and 9.4% on June 1). Of note, the 7-day average for positive tests is 15.1%.
On the trend lines, the transmission rate and 14-day new case trend both remain in the red. The goal for the transmission rate is to be less than 1.0 but is currently at a 1.2 transmission rate. Hospital and ICU capacity have both moved back into the yellow with both metrics having 17% of beds available (goal is 20% availability for each). The other two capacity metrics - public health and testing - remain in the green.
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
Late this afternoon, Tennessee reported 84,417 cases of COVID-19, an increase of 2,473 since yesterday. Tennessee has recorded 888 deaths (an increase of 17 in 24 hours). There have been 3,907 hospitalizations across Tennessee (up 109 in 24 hours) and 49,748 have recovered (an increase of 1,896 since the previous day). A total of 1,262,993 Tennesseans have been tested for COVID-19 (an increase of 25,582 since the previous day).
Despite rising case numbers and actual numbers of deaths, the statewide death rates have continued to drop. Currently, the state's death rate is 1.05. That figure is down from a death rate of 1.3 on July 1 and 1.46 the last week of June.
Donate to the Greater Nashville COVID-19 Response Fund
Earlier this week, the United Way of Greater Nashville released the following statement from Brian Hassett, president and CEO of the organization. "We're all tired. This has gone on longer and affected many more people than any of could have anticipated. But we're not giving up. As long as there are people in need ... people in our community who are suffering from the effects of this virus, United Way will be here," Brian Hassett, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Nashville, said in a news release. "We're going to continue to work hard every day to bridge the gaps and to support our nonprofit partners and our neighbors to make sure we all make it through this together. But to do that, we need a lot more funding. We need a lot more of our local businesses, corporations and private foundations to step up and help our community weather this storm."
Approximately $160,000 of the $5.06 million fund remains. For information on how the funds have been used, please go to www.nashvilleresponsefund.com. To donate, please go to www.unitedwaynashville.org/donate.