NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – The Tennessee Department of Health has confirmed additional cases and deaths related to COVID-19 across the state on Monday, August 10.

The health department reported 1,202 new cases, bringing the state to 123,914 total cases, a 1% day-to-day increase since Sunday. Of the total cases, 122,097 are confirmed and 1,817 are probable.

Tennessee’s seven-day new cases average now sits at 1,897 additional cases per day.

TDH also confirmed 10 additional deaths, bringing Tennessee up to 1,233 total deaths.

Out of the confirmed positive cases, 83,170 have recovered, an increase of 2,173 recoveries.

The latest number of hospitalizations went up by 35 to 5,339. A note on the department’s website states this total is an indication of the number of patients that were ever hospitalized during their illness and not an indication of the number of patients currently hospitalized.

Of the 123,914 cases, 60,340 are male (49%), 62,223 are female (50%), and 1,351 are pending (1%).

Tennessee has conducted 1,726,090 tests with 1,602,176 negative results. The percentage for positive cases remains around 7.2%. Monday’s update added 14,771 tests to the state’s total.

COVID-19 in Nashville

Earlier Monday, Metro Public Health Department officials reported 23,191 cases of COVID-19 in Davidson County.

On July 28, Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced the order closing all bars in Nashville and requiring restaurants serving alcohol to shut down by 10 p.m. daily has been extended through at least mid-August.

All “transpotainment” vehicles are banned from the streets of Nashville and Davidson County as of July 31, regardless of whether there is alcohol on-board, according to the Metro Public Health Department.

Metro Police said they will issue citations to anyone who defies Metro Public Health orders by not wearing masks. The news comes after weeks of criticism aimed at Nashville leaders for not ticketing crowds of maskless people partying downtown.

Metro police issued 42 citations and arrested four people for violating Nashville’s mask mandate during the department’s first weekend of enhanced enforcement on Broadway. Twenty of those citations were written Friday and 18 were issued Saturday, police said. They added one arrest was made Friday, while the other three were Saturday.

On August 7, Cooper announced Public Health Order 10 that prohibits open consumption, possession, and late-night to-go sales of alcoholic beverages in downtown and midtown Nashville.

Nashville is still in the modified Phase Two, but the city could advance to Phase Three of the Roadmap to Reopening again in a few weeks, which would mean bigger crowds near bars and restaurants downtown. Some Metro council members are floating around an idea they believe would boost business while reopening the area safely.

Schools Moving Forward

On July 28, Governor Bill Lee announced the State of Tennessee’s recommendations to reopen schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The governor’s plan for re-opening schools is getting criticized by some state leaders.

The director of the Tennessee Association of School Nurses said “frustration” was the best word to describe how school nurses felt as students head back to classrooms across the state this week.

Last week, the Williamson County School district started the year with one of its campuses closed when it was scheduled to have students learning in-person.

Putnam County Schools released an update on August 7 regarding the first week of school during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Director of Schools Corby King, one student at Cookeville High School this week tested positive for COVID-19 and was in close contact with other students. Those students have been reportedly contacted and have been placed on a 14-day quarantine.

On the same day, Coffee County Schools announced it will move to a hybrid schedule beginning Wednesday, August 12 due to an increase in active COVID-19 cases.

On Monday, Rutherford County Schools announced two employees at Christiana Middle School tested positive for COVID-19, and the school would transition to all distance-learning starting the first day of school, August 13 through August 21.

COVID-19 & Sports 

Gov. Lee announced Executive Order No. 55 would include Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association member schools in an exception to contact sports restrictions. He officially signed the order on July 31.

The TSSAA said although contact practice is now permissible, regulations and requirements for practice and competition adopted by the Board of Control at their July 22 meeting are still in place for all sports and must be followed.

A day after Lee’s announcement, school leaders in Davidson sent out a letter to all schools in the county asking to cancel all sports and extracurricular activities until after Labor Day.

On the collegiate level, several conferences have released their plans for the season amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, Old Dominion University announced it has canceled all fall sports, including football, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Tennessee’s COVID-19 Response

Dr. Deborah Birx met with Governor Lee in Nashville on July 27. The Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force called for all Tennessee counties to issue mask mandates. Several counties have issued mask requirements around the state already.

A number of retailers and restaurants are also requiring masks while visiting their stores. See a full list of locations here.

On Monday, Vanderbilt released a new modeling report which shows the relationship between face mask mandates and hospitalization rates in Tennessee.

In June, the Tennessee Department of Health announced changes to its format for sharing COVID-19 data. The department’s total number of cases and total deaths now include both laboratory-confirmed cases and probable cases as defined in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance case definitions. – Learn more about the changes here.