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Bedford County is red-hot with COVID-19

By TERENCE CORRIGAN - tgnews@t-g.com
Posted 12/5/20

On a map of Tennessee that tracks daily the county-by-county hot spots for the spread of COVID-19, Bedford County was in the top 10, Thursday, for the severity of the situation in the last 14 days based on the number of cases per 100,000 population and the average daily new case count...

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Bedford County is red-hot with COVID-19

Posted

On a map of Tennessee that tracks daily the county-by-county hot spots for the spread of COVID-19, Bedford County was in the top 10, Thursday, for the severity of the situation in the last 14 days based on the number of cases per 100,000 population and the average daily new case count.

The map depicts the severity of a county’s situation on a temperature-based color scale, from yellow for the least severe through several values of red to a deep maroon for the worst cases. Bedford County was deep maroon this week, with a case rate of 102 per 100,000 and a daily average of 51 new cases per day.

Bedford County’s cases per 100,000 was, however, the lowest in this inauspicious group of 10 counties but its standing in the daily average number of cases (51) was exceeded by just two of its cohort counties: McMinn with 59 and Maury with 106.

The top 10 counties, and their average new case count per day over the last 14 days, were: Obion (32), Wayne (22), Lawrence (50), Maury (106), Lincoln (37), White (32), Rhea (39), McMinn, (59), Scott (25) and Bedford (51).

Bedford County’s new case count offered a glimmer of hope in Thursday’s reports from the state health department with just eight positive tests. Testing has averaged 332 per day in the county for the last seven days with an average of 45 daily positives for COVID, resulting in a positivity rate of 13.5 percent. This most recent positivity rate is down considerably from the 20 percent-plus in recent weeks but it is still well above the 5 percent health officials with the Centers for Disease Control say is the top benchmark needed.

“The higher the percent positive is, the more concerning it is. As a rule of thumb, however, one threshold for the percent positive being ‘too high’ is 5%,” according to Johns Hopkins University. “Because a high percentage of positive tests suggests high coronavirus infection rates (due to high transmission in the community), a high percent positive can indicate it may be a good time to add restrictions to slow the spread of disease.”

Over the last 14 days (Nov. 20 through Dec. 3) there were 576 new cases of the coronavirus identified in Bedford County from 2,505 tests, a positivity rate of 23 percent, more than four times the 5 percent benchmark.

Over the last 14 days (Nov. 20 through Dec. 3), Bedford County has recorded a daily average of active cases of 320. The highest number in that period was 377 on Tuesday of this week.

The deaths of 34 Bedford County residents are attributed to the coronavirus. Six of the deaths have been since Nov. 25.

On Thursday, Tennessee recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths, 93, in one day since the pandemic arrived in the state in early March.

During the 14 days from Nov. 20 through Dec. 3, a total of 653 Tennesseans have died from COVID-19, an average of 47 every day or just under one person every half-hour.

Tennessee’s positivity rate over the last 14 days (Nov. 20 through Dec. 3) was 18.13 percent with 59,894 new cases from 330,336 tests.