Over eight weeks, the coronavirus has been confirmed in all but two Tennessee counties. Only rural Hancock and Pickett counties are yet to report a case to the state.
The case count topped 10,000 on Tuesday and the virus has killed 199 Tennesseans as of May 1, according to the state’s Department of Health.
Shelby and Davidson counties have the most cases, and a large share of fatalities.
Other concentrations have been found in:
- Williamson County, where the state confirmed its first case back on March 5;
- Sumner County, which scrambled to respond to a fatal outbreak at a nursing home, and;
- Bledsoe County, where a state prison is in the middle of a case spike.
- McMinn County, where an outbreak at a nursing home helped push the county from 7 cases to 92 in the last week
This animation shows the weekly spread of the coronavirus in Tennessee over eight weeks.
Tennessee’s case count continues to mount, and some recent single-day counts have been among the largest of the pandemic.
But state officials argue that other metrics give them hope. For example, the state has consistently found that only about 7% of people tested are confirmed to be positive for the coronavirus, and that figure has been slowly ticking down.
Likewise, among confirmed COVID-19 cases, Tennessee has consistently seen that about 10% of require hospitalization and 2% are fatal.
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