There’s some good news and some bad news. This quick chart conveys all the info needed.
GREAT NEWS – cases continue to fall here.
The 7 day average number of daily cases is 158 per day – down to about one third the level from July 20th. (On that date the daily average was 447).
With Davidson County’s population of 700,000 – that makes for 228 per million per day. That’s 60% higher than the US average. So that’s still cause for concern. The current rate of new cases would likely still result in a longer term level of fatalities than we are comfortable with.
Fatalities on the rise
As you can see from the chart – fatalities have risen significantly this month – to approximately 3.6 per day. As my wife intuitively pointed out, that’s not surprising given the large ramp up in daily cases experienced in July.
Taking a step back – the total number of COVID fatalities in Davidson County is 245. That’s now twice the level of people who typically die in seasonal flu (using nationwide averages).
Tennessee has recorded 1,542 COVID deaths this year – and is #33 on the list of most deaths by state when adjusted for population size.
Tennessee deaths are rising faster than many states.
With the recent data in Davidson and across Tennessee, Tennessee is now #9 on the list of current fatalities per million – with 4.5 deaths per million per day – versus a US average of 3.1.
Where do we go from here
Well the big uncertainty is the impact of return to school / college. Some schools started returning on August 19th. We won’t see any impact of school related transmission in the data for likely another 3 weeks.
Closing thoughts
Keep up the good work. Wear the masks. Be especially vigilant with following school protocols.
While the uptick in fatalities is concerning; its a consequence of the peak of cases in July – so we would expect this to come back under control.
JF Insights 