Hospitals in much of the country are filling up with COVID-19 cases. But staffing — not space — is the main concern, and bringing in backups from out of town isn’t the solution it was early in the pandemic, when the surge was concentrated in a handful of cities.
Blake Farmer, Senior Healthcare Reporter
Blake Farmer is Nashville Public Radio's senior health care reporter. In a partnership with Kaiser Health News and NPR, Blake covers health in Tennessee and the health care industry in the Nashville area for local and national audiences.
Investigation: Tennessee Outsourced Hundreds Of Contact Tracers But Releases Little Data On Results
Tennessee has outsourced most of its contact tracing to a medical billing company with no experience in epidemiology. And despite spending tens of millions of dollars on the effort, the state has published very little evidence to show how the company is doing.
Space For COVID Care Getting Tight — Even At Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Even Tennessee’s largest hospital is running into capacity issues, with more than 200 staffers out sick with COVID-19 or quarantining because of close contact.
Nashville Restricts Household Gatherings To Eight People, Though Large Events May Go On
Starting Monday, Nashville will cap private gatherings to eight people, with no more than two households represented. Previously the limit was 25. It marks a shift in the focus of pandemic restrictions from public events to private spaces.
Nashville ER Doctors: More Hospitals Are Diverting Patients, As COVID Hospitalizations Climb
As COVID-19 hospitalizations set new records nearly every day in Tennessee, doctors are speaking out about the dire situation they see in their emergency rooms with patients traveling hours to find a hospital that has space for them.
Tennessee Hospital Chief: Sick Nurses And A Shortage Of Contractors Are Limiting Capacity
Tennessee hospitals are calling off elective procedures again, doubling up hospital rooms and converting recovery rooms into intensive care units, according to the Tennessee Hospital Association. These changes come as hospitals are seeing twice as many patients with COVID-19 as they were in early October, surpassing 1,800 current hospitalizations on Monday.
Metro Schools Plans Return To All-Remote Learning After Thanksgiving
Unless Nashville sees a dramatic turnaround, elementary students in Metro Schools will likely be back home learning virtually after Thanksgiving break.
Why Tennessee Won’t Celebrate A $1B Budget Surplus
Rather than cash-strapped, Tennessee is actually quite flush. The latest tax revenues from October show the state has already built up a $1 billion surplus in tax collections.
Biden Wants State Mask Mandates, But Tennessee’s Governor Says That Won’t Work
The incoming Biden administration plans to ask governors to require masks in their states. But Tennessee’s Bill Lee says he’s convinced that mayors, not governors, are the right people to make such mandates.
WPLN News Special Report: What We’ve Learned About COVID-19
A Tennessee Thanksgiving should be a small, preferably outdoor affair, according to one of Nashville’s leading voices on COVID-19. Dr. James Hildreth, president and CEO of Meharry Medical College, says ideally, families will only gather in person with their immediate households. He says the stakes have only grown in recent weeks as coronavirus cases escalate […]
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM