Wear your mask, NETN!

As of Friday, July 17, Sullivan, Washington, Greene, and Carter counties in Northeast Tennessee will all have mask mandates in place.

Here's a great video about How Masks Work. I encourage you to watch:

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Tennessee Releases Info on School-Aged COVID-19 Cases

Yesterday, Tennessee released the number of total COVID-19 cases in school-aged children (5-18) by county. This is the first time we've had the ages broken out this way. Previously the state was providing ten year age ranges (0-10 and 11-20). For the NETN region, 9.5% of cases have been school-aged children. This ranges from 0% in Unicoi to 23% of cases in Hancock county. These are total cases and not active. In other regional case news, Washington County had a record-high new cases (51) on July 19 followed by our second highest day on the 20th (40). The trend is similar across the region. But on the bright side, Sullivan County's active cases dropped on Wednesday for the first time since June 16. Granted they went back up one again yesterday, but we'll take the happy news when we can get it right now. The data below is through Thursday, July 23. If you are a parent and reading this, you've probably been following the 14-day rate per 100,000 people charts I've be

Sullivan County Increased by 40 New Cases Yesterday

I keep checking the data every day and hoping that our recent trend of increasing cases is slowing. Unfortunately, the epi curves in Northeast Tennessee look less like curves and more like straight vertical lines at this point. From July 1 to July 18 the region increased by a total of 858 COVID-19 cases . Active cases increased by 608 during this time. Yesterday, Sullivan County experienced its largest single-day increase in cases to date (40). Washington County had our largest increase 3 days ago of 28 cases. I've had questions about whether the increase in positive cases is because we are testing more. Unfortunately, our positivity rate (the percentage of total tests that are positive) is also increasing. Positivity Rates Note: The more local you get, the more difficult the daily rates are to interpret. For example, in Washington County, the days with spikes over 30% very few tests were conducted. On May 20, only 3 tests were reported and 1 was positive. I haven't figured

Washington County in the "Red Zone." Now What?

As I expected, Washington County moved into the "red zone" for school openings yesterday. But what does that mean? If it stays this way, will schools go to only remote? Not necessarily... Johnson City Schools has issued an FAQ which addresses this specifically. From the FAQ: Going into “red” or substantial (defined as an average of > 11+new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 Washington County residents over the last 14 days) will not automatically mean that schools shutdown and every student will become a remote learner. Local health departments, school officials, city and county leaders cannot focus only on the number of cases and the case rate alone, but should also consider characteristics across four factors to fully determine community risk. These factors include: - Disease epidemiology: Level of community transmission, number and type of outbreaks, impact of the outbreaks on delivery of healthcare or other critical infrastructure or services, and epidemiology in surroundin

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