On Friday, Tennessee was the No. 2 state in the country in per capita testing for the coronavirus with nearly 38,000 Tennesseans tested for the virus, according to Gov. Bill Lee.
But we here in Hamilton County wouldn’t know it. Because we’re not doing – or should we say we’re not getting – much testing. Statewide, one in every 179 residents had been tested as of Friday. In Hamilton County, the equivalent of one in every 407 residents had been tested. Ours is the lowest testing rate by far of any major city in the state.
Lee made that point, too. He said Hamilton County has lagged behind other major cities, and he is eager to boost the number of tests for the virus in Chattanooga.
Thank goodness someone is. To date, the number of reported coronavirus tests conducted in Hamilton County has been less than half the per capita rate for the state as a whole. Did we mention that we also have the state’s highest death rate among confirmed cases?
“We talked about that (lack of testing in Hamilton County) with the leadership of this community today to see how we can better coordinate the capacity,” Lee told reporters Friday after he and the state’s unified coronavirus team met with local health and elected officials at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “We do have capacity for testing here. We just need to make sure that all of the medical providers and all of the hospitals and health departments are coordinating our efforts to ramp up that testing.”