Is Covid-19 moving into the smaller counties of Tennessee

August 4, 2020

Collins Parker,

NASHVILLE (WDEF) – A new report from Vanderbilt University shows a shift in where the new Covid-19 cases are coming from in Tennessee.

It says the majority of new cases now are outside of metro Nashville and Memphis.

The numbers in the two larger cities seem to be stabilizing as they climb outside.

So we compared Tennessee’s NowCast rates to see how our area is fairing… the current rate of new cases plus the current rate factored with county population.

NOWcast Raw New Case Rate

86.1 Hamilton County

38.7 Bradley County

15.0 McMinn County

13.8 Rhea County

5.4 Marion County

5.3 Polk County

4.9 Meigs County

4.0 Grundy County

3.9 Bledsoe County

3.0 Sequatchie County

NOWcast New Cases Per 100,000 People

41.73 Rhea County (total 502 cases)

39.69 Meigs County (98)

35.79 Bradley County (1,713)

31.25 Polk County (165)

29.94 Grundy County (101)

27.83 McMinn County (489)

26.02 Bledsoe County (672)

23.42 Hamilton County (5,617)

19.63 Sequatchie County (94)

18.65 Marion County (205)

SO WHAT DID WE LEARN

— Marion County is doing the best job of avoiding Covid-19 right now

— Rhea County is doing the worst job

— we’re all doing much better than rural West Tennessee (Hardeman with a whopping 107.35 per 100,000) and East Tennessee mountains (Sevier/Gatlinburg 60.3)

Or in this map, the darker the county, the worst its new case rate is.