Tennessee is coming off its deadliest day of the pandemic with 89 deaths statewide in a 24-hour window. Numbers continue to rise across the nation and the state, as Tennessee cases approach 300,000. Staff and bed shortages are becoming all too real in communities across the U.S. In Nashville and the state, ICU beds are down and hospitalizations are up. After several weeks with most metrics in green or yellow for Nashville. The city now has half of the key COVID-19 benchmarks in the red.

Healthcare providers and public health officials are increasingly worried about the perfect storm of winter, flu season and Thanksgiving gatherings layered on top of out-of-control spread. Warning lights are flashing. Yet, when it comes to a coordinated national or statewide mask mandate, the silence is deafening. Leaving it up to individual communities is becoming increasingly problematic as people travel from county to county, state to state, particularly with the upcoming holiday.

Metro Nashville

As of 9:30 today, the city reported 38,802 confirmed cases, an increase of 540 since yesterday and nearly 1,500 in three days. There are currently 3,139 active cases in Nashville, 35,331 inactive or recovered cases and 292 active hospitalizations. With 332 deaths (8 since yesterday), the city has a case fatality rate of 0.86%. In Davidson County, 569,491 tests have been administered with a positive rate of 8.4%.

Out of 8 metrics on the trend lines, Nashville has 3 in the green, 1 in the yellow and 4 in the red - transmission rate, 14-day new case trend, ICU bed capacity and new cases per 100,000 residents. With a goal for transmission to be less than 1.0, the city's current transmission rate is 1.15 (up from 1.07 on Tuesday). The 14-day case trend is in the red with new cases rising. 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 (but nearing red) with 11% availability with ICU beds remaining in the red as availability drops once again and now sits at 6% capacity (down from 9% on Tuesday). The goal for both hospital and ICU bed capacity is 20%.

The New Cases per 100K Residents has remained in the red for the past two weeks. The goal of the seven-day rolling average is to be at 10 or below. Currently, Nashville sits at 50.4 as of 9:30 am this morning. 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 8.7% (but that figure is up from 8.4% on Tuesday, 8.0% last Friday and 7.4% on Monday, Nov. 2). Overall, numbers continue to trend in the wrong direction.

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

Nashville remains in Phase 3 of COVID Reopening. The city also continues its mask mandate, with several nearby counties having reinstated similar mandates after letting them expire earlier. Governor Bill Lee extended the Tennessee State of Emergency tied to COVID-19 through Dec. 29.

Tennessee State

As of this afternoon, the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) confirmed an additional 3,344 new cases of COVID-19 with the state total hitting 296,725. There are currently 1,749 hospitalizations (up 35 from yesterday) and 3,788 deaths (up 27 in 24 hours) for a death rate of 1.28. Nearly 4 million tests have been administered statewide (up 21,184 since yesterday) with a 13.46% positive rate for the day. The number of inactive/recovered cases statewide is 262,527.