Mayor Cooper To Business Owners: ‘Don’t Waste What We’ve Done’

Nashville Mayor John Cooper said on Friday the county is on track to start a phased reopening of businesses.

He said the city is in a better position than expected, but “we are not out of the woods.”

And he had strong words for business owners who might be pushing for a quick reopening.

“Don’t waste what we’ve done,” Cooper said to reporters in a videoconference. “This has been very hard this progress is a painfully one and is with enormous sacrifice by business and individuals.”

According to Metro’s latest numbers, there are 2,832 confirmed cases of COVID-19. That’s 163 more cases in a 24-hour period.

Dr. Alex Jahangir, the chairman of Metro’s Coronavirus Task Force, said the latest case count has an impact on the infectious rate metric the city is using to reopen. They’d like the average number of cases to decrease for 14-days in a row.

But Jahangir said this is not the only metric they are using to decide.

“Not a single day of up or down would determine what happens,” Jahangir said. “We are looking at multiple metrics.”