Nashville is not ready to move on to Phase Three of its planned four-phased reopening after COVID-19 because of what’s happening in Southeast Davidson County.
Mayor John Cooper announced this at a press conference this week.
As The Tennessee Star reported in April, Southeast Nashville has many diverse communities and has also had the highest cluster of COVID-19 as far back as April.
“The majority of public health metrics are satisfactory, but case numbers both here and across the state are slightly elevated, prompting us to stay in Phase Two for our roadmap for reopening Nashville,” Cooper said.
“The level of cases in Southeast Nashville warrants further attention. I have instructed the public health department to concentrate its efforts in a more focused response in these neighborhoods. So we will continue, hopefully just a little bit longer, with Phase Two while carefully observing our public health data every day.”
As of Friday, Davidson County had a total number of 6,734 confirmed cases of COVID-19, an increase of 107 in the preceding 24 hours, according to the county government’s website.
“The confirmed cases range in age from 1 month to 100 years,” according to Nashville.gov
“A total of 80 people have died after a confirmed case of COVID-19. 5,249 individuals have recovered from the virus.”
Metro Coronavirus Task Force Chair Alex Jahangir, at the press conference alongside Cooper, said that in the past month nearly 50 percent of new cases are from Southeast Nashville.
“Our contact investigations have shown that more than 85 percent of cases in that area had a relevant exposure to the virus in the home, as their most likely source of infection, meaning not through community spread,” Jahangir said.
But Jahangir also said the pandemic is not a Southeast Nashville problem.
“We have seen the virus affect almost every part of our city, our region and our state and not just a few zip codes. While we may focus on this area we want to continue to work to slow the spread of this virus throughout the entire city,” Jahangir said.
As The Star reported last month, Cooper issued a four-phased plan to reopen Nashville’s economy.
According to ASafeNashville.org, for each of the four phases Nashville is in, city officials will only advance to the next phase if the area meets one of two benchmarks. The website said either the number of COVID-19 cases in Davidson County must remain stable or the number must decline over a 14-day period.
In Phase Three businesses and restaurants will go to full capacity. In addition, bars and entertainment venues will open at half capacity. Gyms and fitness facilities will open. Other gatherings will be limited to 100, again with adherence to strict physical distancing protocols. In Phase Four, bars and entertainment venues will be at full capacity, and sport venues will open with adherence to physical distancing protocols and best practices.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “John Cooper” by John Cooper.
Stop it! You silently stood by while rioters, “protestors” & Antifa went through downtown breaking & looting. Now you’re keeping Phase Two? NOBODY needs to listen to that when you allowed those groups total Freedom to riot. NO “phases”.! OPEN NOW, EVERYBODY. ITS A FLU- we will be living with it a long time. OUR choice- not this jerk’s anymore!
…the only time you left Covid lockdown was to torch police cars.
He wants to keep it shutdown as long as he can, he is a Democratic hack politician. Plus you are right he is to stupid! This guy is a walking disaster.
Quarantine the hotspot and open up the rest of the county. But Cooper is too stupid to do anything like that. Or is he afraid of offending his base?