A new study ranked Tennessee as having one of the least aggressive responses in the country to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a survey released Tuesday by WalletHub, Tennessee’s response to COVID-19 is the ninth least aggressive in the nation, despite having the 12th most confirmed cases in the country as of Tuesday.
The survey compared the responses of all 50 states and the District of Columbia using 35 key metrics, such as statewide school closures, activating the National Guard, closing bars and restaurants, and banning large public gatherings.
Each state’s response was assessed across the three general categories of “prevention and containment,” “risk factors and infrastructure,” and “economic impact.”
“We evaluated those dimensions using 35 relevant metrics … with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest value,” the company said in announcing the study. “We then determined each state and the District’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.”
Wyoming was ranked as having the least aggressive response in the nation, followed by Mississippi, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Missouri, Hawaii, Kansas, Tennessee, and Indiana.
On the other end of the scale, Rhode Island was listed as the state with the most aggressive measures for responding to the pandemic, followed by Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Washington, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Minnesota, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday that he has ordered all K-12 public schools in the state to close through March 31. The governor and legislative leaders also decided to cancel “all remaining legislative business” apart from passing a state budget.
“Today’s action will move us into a position to utilize additional emergency funds as needed and relax provisions of certain laws to provide the flexibility needed to respond to this disease,” Lee said last week after declaring a state of emergency in Tennessee. “While the risk to the general public remains low, we encourage all Tennesseans to exercise caution and maintain good hygiene practices as there are serious risks to our vulnerable populations. We will continue to evaluate and adapt our position accordingly to fit what we believe is best for Tennesseans.”
Tennessee now has 98 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Notably, the 18-49 age range has the most confirmed cases of the virus.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Coronavirus Testing” by Gov. Tom Wolf. CC BY 2.0.
One thing that probably contributed to slower response and also to more rapid spread is the tornado. Others have not had to deal with that. Communities came together to help neighbors and for many the virus took a back seat to immediate necessity. I will say Nashville government is more caught up in being the It City and they didn’t act to protect folks who live here.
Putting our heads in the sand and pretending we are “different “from the rest of the nation will not keep the virus from spreading. The less we do in social distancing, the more likely the healthcare system will be overwhelmed. If this happens it will affect ALL diseases and episodes of care requiring ICU treatment. That means there may well not be room in an ICU for you after a car accident of a heart attack or bad car accident. All physicians will be pressed into service and it may be the local dermatologist who decides whether you get put on a ventilator or get”comfort measures”.
PEOPLE THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!
Our elected officials need to start enforcing strict social distancing measures now. If they wait until the cases begin to rise rapidly it will be too late to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system and we will all suffer.
I don’t care about anybodies politics, I want the most of us still around to have these discussions in 6-12 months.
Absolutely! The government should make everyone keep a safe distance-and if you don’t they should put you in jail with other people. That will make us all safer. No wait-the government is letting people out of jail because it is unsafe to have all of these people in close proximity to each other. Then the government should take you into court and prosecute you. No wait-the courts are closed. That presents a problem. So maybe the police should arrest you, keep you at a safe distance while the handcuff you, toss you in the back of the squad car-no wait-that is not a safe distance-then they can throw you in the back of a pickup truck-no wait-that would be illegal and they would have to arrest themselves, but it is hard to do that at a safe distance. My, my, this certainly presents a problem.
Anyway, do you not see the foolishness of government mandates and dictates? they are only as good as people’s willingness to cooperate and comply.
You need to take your health into your own hands. If you are afraid of the virus, by all means sequester yourself till this passes. Why, you might be the only person left alive. You can then elect yourself supreme leader and rule the earth the way you like. First order of business, figure out what you will do with 330,000,000 dead bodies.
Viruses don’t spread in the spring! Warm weather is DEATH to any virus whether it’s the kung flu or the influenza virus.
What does the BIBLE SAY? 🤔 VACCINES AND DISTANCING? UHM NO! http://maranathamedia.com/article/print/the-amazing-hyssop-of-the-bible
come out of the beast system we are not to love the world
Shouldn’t we get some sort of explanation from either the state or county health departments as to why, given their contact tracking, Davidson has sooooo many cases, followed by Williamson? Where did all of this start? Are some parts of the counties impacted more than others? So, should people in those areas stay in their homes more???? There are a lot of rumors out there about where that fuels the panic. More information from authorities might quell some of the panic. And, HIPAA should not pertain to a public health emergency. A little more information about who/where this thing is spreading would not “out” anyone in a metro area. Good grief, Authorities. Follow the stupid rules, not common sense.
” Follow the stupid rules, not common sense”I’ll follow common sense every time. Rules are made by the government, and as all common sense people know, the less government the better.
What I see is the states that rank the highest in their response to this virus, are the liberal states government. The ones that rank the lowest are the most conservative. Proud to be a conservative in Tennessee, a state that thinks before they act and doesn’t overreact.
Amen, friend!
Ah yes, never let a crisis go to waste! FDR would be proud of those Top 10 States “responses to the pandemic”. If only we had a more centralized response and had fully implemented ObamCare and a single payer healthcare system. This whole issue would have been prevented. Right! Blah, blah, blah.
If a centralized response is so effective, and centralized control in general is such a panacea, how come this whole thing started and blew up in Communist China?
Oh and by the way, those top 10 States are far from being bastions of freedom. Governor Lee and Tennessee are and will be, doing just fine!
I don’t think looking to WalletHub for reliable rankings brings credibility to this article. WalletHub has issues in most of the “rankings” that it does.
Is it possible that Tennessee is taking a more practical approach to this whole issue? I find it interesting that the majority of cases in Tennessee are in the counties that are predominantly Democratic, just like the states that now have most of the cases. A very good article was published last week comparing the locations in America that were reporting the greatest number of infections and the locations in America that voted for Clinton in the presidential election, The link to the article is below:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/jennifer_rubins_death_wish_for_republicans_is_factually_wrong__and_the_maps_prove_it.html
After not watched the MSM for over fifteen years, I now installed an OTA HDTV antenna so we can watch our local news and the national news on an NBC affiliate. The national news is one article after another about the virus. It’s nauseating to sit and listen to their fear mongering. It reminds me of the Y2K hysteria. The Left is so pathetic, they continue to demand that the federal government save them, instead of taking responsibility for themselves. A comment on a Vermont (extreme socialist state, think Bernie Sanders) news website last week summed up the Leftist viewpoint. The article contained dire predictions for Vermont due to the virus, and the first comment from a reader about the article was…”our government has failed us”.
I cannot speak to politics and state to state response (although I think a similar trend would be found regarding population), but the counties in TN with the highest confirmed cases are generally the counties most densely populated and/or urban, so common sense would indicate the high case count is more likely attributable to that than anything related to politics or party. Outside of those densely populated counties, the vast majority of Tennessee IS conservative, but also really rather rural.
Please add me