Nashville Inches Closer To Reopening, But Not Ready To Make Promises Yet

New cases of the coronavirus have slowed to the point that Nashville is nearly ready to start reopening its economy. But officials are waiting for more data before they set a date.

At a press briefing Friday morning, Metro Coronavirus Task Force Chair Alex Jahangir said social distancing measures have put the city on track to let some businesses open their doors in early May.

“However, we are not at a point to give a specific date at this point,” he said. “Now, I know that’s frustrating. We all have to know when we can get back to a new normal. But we’ve said it all along that the data will drive the decision to reopen, not the dates.”

Jahangir said new numbers from Vanderbilt University’s projection model show that those with the virus are currently spreading it to less than one other person — an essential marker for the city’s phased reopening plan, which Mayor John Cooper unveiled yesterday. He said the average number of new cases over the past 14 days is also steady at the moment.

Jahangir said that looking at the rolling average is important, because positive tests can fluctuate substantially from day-to-day. On Thursday, for instance, the city reported its largest day-over-day increase during the pandemic, with 182 new cases. In the past 24 hours, however, only 32 residents have tested positive.

“We will not let a single good or a single bad day in the numbers take us off course,” Jahangir said.

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Alex Jahangir, director of Metro’s Coronavirus Response Task Force.

And as people start leaving their homes, Jahangir said contact tracing will be vital to isolate clusters of the virus as they crop up. He said the county now has 42 contact tracers — up from just four before the outbreak hit Nashville.

For now, Jahangir said, Metro has enough contact tracers, tests and hospital beds to keep up with demand. But he said officials will continue to monitor the numbers as businesses start to open.

Trust will also play an important role restarting the economy, said Laura Hollingsworth, who helped develop Metro’s reopening plan. The Opry Entertainment Group executive said at the press briefing that businesses will have to earn consumer confidence.

“We are expecting that there are going to be questions that we don’t have answers to yet, quite frankly, because there are things we just don’t know yet,” Hollingsworth said. “What we do know is that we can begin by taking the steps that are within our control now and are reflected within the roadmap and do them in a way that will engender the trust, not only of our local customers, but also the customer who come from all corners of the world to visit us in this great city and are critical to our Nashville economy.”

Hollingsworth said the city’s phased reopening plan has been well-received by business owners. She said the goal was to provide guidance without being “overly prescriptive or highly restrictive.”

“Our businesses want and need to be open. Our community needs our businesses to be open,” Hollingsworth said. “And what everybody wants, especially our businesses, is to be able to ensure that our customers and our employees will be safe.”