For more than eight weeks, Southeast Nashville has been the site of a coronavirus hot spot.
It’s home to some of the city’s most diverse communities. In Nashville and across the country, people of color are being disproportionately affected by the virus.
The Metro Public Health Department has published heat maps showing where new and active cases are clustered. They show that groups along the I-24 corridor have been among the hardest hit by the coronavirus for the better part of two months.
A spokesperson for Metro Public Health says the department is focusing on testing and contact tracing to help contain the spread in South Nashville. The department’s contact tracing team has gone from four to more than 120 since the beginning of the pandemic.
Metro Public Health has also joined with non-profits to hire a multicultural team of community health workers to help inform immigrant and refugee populations about the virus. Still, that program took weeks to ramp up.
The department continues to encourage those concerned about the virus to call Metro’s hotline and get tested at a community assessment center, one of which is located at the former Kmart on Murfreesboro Pike in Antioch.
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