Tennessee is reopening school sports to spectators, lifting the restrictions put in place in December during a post-Thanksgiving surge of coronavirus cases.
Gov. Bill Lee says that Tennesseans heeded his warnings as COVID-19 hospitalizations were breaking records every day. And since then, there’s been a 60% decline in new cases.
“The data now reflects rapidly falling numbers and because of that data, we are ending the recent additional restrictions around who can participate in or attend indoor school sporting events,” Lee says in a statement.
The ban on spectators included many exemptions, including family members, administrators and even college scouts. But the restriction also created widespread irritation since extended family were often kept out. And some school districts have had even more restrictive rules.
Local school districts will still be able to make their own rules about indoor sporting events, but the blanket ban on spectators, which had been extended as recently as Jan. 19, goes away on Monday.
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