NASHVILLE – As Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee deliberates privacy concerns about identifying COVID-19 patients for law enforcement, the head of the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association weighed in last week with a letter to Lee calling the information “vital to our first responders.”
The association president, Montgomery Sheriff John S. Fuson, thanked Lee for having instructed the state Department of Health “to release the minimum amount of protected health information of those who have tested positive for COVID-19.”
“This information,” Fuson wrote, “is vital to our first responders as it helps them identify and properly prepare themselves for contact with citizens that have tested positive for the virus.”
His letter also said that first responders are granted access to the information under federal health privacy laws.
“This provision of the law not only helps prevent the spread of infectious disease, access to this information is literally saving the lives of the thousands of men and women serving on the front line of this,” Fuson said.