COVID-19 Bulletin #21 - April 20, 2020

Gov. Lee’s daily press conferences will resume next Monday through Thursday at 3 p.m. CDT and can be viewed here. Gov. Lee has also established a website specific to COVID-19 updates which can be found here.

Key Updates

Record Testing Conducted This Weekend

In an aggressive push to test outside of traditional symptoms, Gov. Lee announced that more than 11,000 Tennesseans received free COVID-19 tests through the weekend efforts of the Unified-Command Group. Expanded testing will continue for the next two weekends - April 25-26 and May 2-3. A full list of sites can be accessed here. 

In addition to drive-through sites, all rural county health departments across the state offer free COVID-19 testing 5 days a week. A full list of county health departments can be accessed here. 

To date, we have conducted 100,689 tests, with this weekend’s surge accounting for the largest number of tests conducted in our state over a two-day period.

More information on Tennessee's expanded testing capacity is available here. 

Data Update

• For 17 consecutive days, we have seen only single-digit increases in the number of cases in our state.
• Our hospitalization rate has consistently remained lower than national averages.
• As of today, our number of recovered patients exceeds the number of active cases.

Safer at Home Expiring April 30, Phased Reopening Next Week

Today, Gov. announced the order for Tennesseans to remain at home will expire April 30, 2020. The vast majority of businesses in 89 of Tennessee’s 95 counties will be allowed to re-open on May 1, with some slated to open on Monday, April 27.

The Lee Administration is working directly with local officials and health departments in Tennessee’s six major metropolitan areas (Shelby, Madison, Davidson, Hamilton, Knox, and Sullivan counties) as they plan their re-open strategies.

The Economic Recovery Group (ERG), composed of 30 leaders from the public and private sector is crafting guidance to assist businesses in a safe reopening. The industry representatives participating in the ERG collectively represent over 140,000 Tennessee businesses that employ over 2.5M Tennesseans. More information about ERG is available here.

More information on efforts to safely reboot Tennessee’s economy is available here.

Current Department of Health Testing Results (as of 2 p.m. 4/20)

Confirmed Cases	Hospitalizations	Fatalities	Recovered	Total Tests
7,238	730	152	3,575	100,689

For more information on COVID-19 in Tennessee, please visit the Tennessee Department of Health’s website here.