COVID-19 Prominent in One Corner of Nashville, but Rest of the City Remains Closed

 

The southeastern end of Davidson County has the largest cluster of Nashville’s COVID-19 cases, but the rest of the county remains closed for business because of the virus.

This, according to a color-coded map Nashville officials released Tuesday.

“Our cases identified over the last week are still geographically located and clustered in the southeastern part of the county,” said Leslie Waller, an epidemiologist with the Metro Nashville Public Health Department at a press conference Tuesday.

“We know there are many diverse communities that reside there that can benefit from tailored support and programming.”

Chris Song, spokesman for Nashville Mayor John Cooper, told The Tennessee Star Monday that county officials will still impose restrictions upon the entire county. This, even though, many of the new cases seem clustered in one county area.

“While we are making special efforts through a partnership between the Metro Pubic Health Department and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition to address a cluster in southeast Nashville, new cases have been found throughout Davidson County as the data reflects,” Song said in an email.

“Every Nashvillian feels an urge to return to business as normal, and many livelihoods depend on it. But in order to get our economy back up and running, we must stay the course and reduce the rate of coronavirus infections across all communities here in Nashville.”

Members of the TIRRC have partnered with the county to devise strategies to help people in the county’s southeastern quadrant cope with COVID-19, Waller said.

Davidson County Vice Mayor Jim Shulman and the 40 Metro Council members did not return The Star’s requests for comment on this matter Tuesday.

Alex Jahangir, who chairs Davidson County’s Metro Coronavirus Task Force, said at Tuesday’s press conference that, as of Tuesday, the county had 2,588 confirmed COVID-19 cases. That was an increase of 100 cases in the previous 24 hours. COVID-19 also claimed the lives of two county residents, both in their 80s, both having underlying medical conditions, Jahangir said.

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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Leslie Waller” by Mayor John Cooper.