Nashville’s COVID-19 Fatalities Have All Had Underlying Conditions, But What Does That Mean?

At least within the city of Nashville, everyone who has died from COVID-19 so far has had an underlying health condition. But that doesn’t mean all of them would be thought of as sickly.

The bar is really low for a pre-existing condition — simply being over 55 is one of them. The risk factors also include diabetes, hypertension and any sort of lung disease, including asthma. So someone who appears young and healthy could still categorize them as having an underlying health condition.

Though, there have been some steps the city has taken that may have saved lives. Dr. Alex Jahangir, Metro Board of Health chair, notes that Nashville was slightly ahead of other parts of the state and nation in testing for COVID-19.

“Part of it may be that we’ve just gotten lucky in our community, and we were able to get to people sooner because of our increased testing capacity,” he says.

Local health systems have also been very quick to check blood oxygen levels of people who test positive, which Jahangir says can provide early signs that someone will need medical attention.

It’s not that young people aren’t getting sick. Nearly half of Davidson County’s 5,200 cases have been in people aged 20 to 40.

But residents shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security, he says. Even just outside Nashville, people who were under 55 and didn’t have underlying conditions have died from COVID-19.