Tennessee health officials urge continued social distancing as model shows less dire coronavirus implications

Staff photo by Troy Stolt / An unidentified person walks past Rivercity Apparel on Fraizer Ave. on Thursday, April 2, 2020 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Mayor Andy Berke announced Executive Order 2020-06 on Thursday, closing all non-essential businesses.
Staff photo by Troy Stolt / An unidentified person walks past Rivercity Apparel on Fraizer Ave. on Thursday, April 2, 2020 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Mayor Andy Berke announced Executive Order 2020-06 on Thursday, closing all non-essential businesses.

Despite promising new projections that Tennessee will see fewer COVID-19 infections and deaths, public health officials say people should continue to be vigilant about social distancing and not overreact to the good news.

The University of Washington updated its projected rate of infections and deaths after Gov. Bill Lee issued a shelter-in-place order for all Tennesseans last week.

However, the governor's shelter-in-place order is scheduled to end April 14 - a day before deaths from Tennessee's outbreak are expected to spike on April 15 and 16, according to the university's estimates.

The University of Washington's model is most often cited by the Trump administration and federal officials. However, predicting the spread of pathogens like the coronavirus using such models is a lot like predicting the weather, said Dr. David Aronoff, director of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt Medical Center.

"Sometimes they're really accurate, sometimes they're not," Aronoff said. "These modelers do the best they can with available data."

Aronoff and Dr. Isaac Thomsen, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program Laboratory, spoke about the model's new projections in a joint video news conference Tuesday.

Models are based on data and assumptions about human behavior.

One of the assumptions the model makes is that people in Tennessee will continue to practice full social distancing through the end of May.

Tina Gerardi, executive director of the Tennessee Nurses Association, said it is critical for people to keep doing that.

"In order to keep those numbers down so that we have the capacity to care for the patients that we anticipate will come in with COVID, we have to stay home and we have to practice strict social distancing," Gerardi said. "I think that's really important for people to understand this is not a quick fix."

Aronoff also pointed out the model anticipates the "height of hospital resource utilization" will come around April 16. That's when hospital beds, ventilators and other equipment will be needed most.

"Which is coming up in about a week," he said. "[The model shows] that this would wane then over time and recede - hopefully and optimistically - into May."

Thomsen said the new projections show Tennessee hospitals will not be overrun by coronavirus patients. However, he cautioned people about reading an optimistic chart and backing off of safety measures.

"We don't want to open things back up too soon and just reset the clock and start surging cases again," Thomsen said. "One of the challenges with effective distancing is it starts to seem like it's not necessary anymore. If we start seeing this drop in cases, we start to think, 'All right, we don't need to have things closed, we don't need to be distancing because cases are going down,' and that would be false."

Thomsen said now is not the time to put a date on when things can open back up. There is still too much that is unknown.

"Whether it's Italy or Spain or even here in Seattle and New York, universally, we've heard you cannot over-prepare for this," Thomsen said. "Any measures to be ready for a surge are absolutely the right thing to do."

The Tennessean reported Lee would continue to factor the modeling into his decision making, but he did not at this time intend to adjust his executive orders to match it.

Lee said Monday he is "encouraged" by the latest University of Washington modeling, which estimated 587 people in Tennessee could die by Aug. 4 as a result of the outbreak. That marked a substantial reduction from a previous estimate, made before the governor instituted a stay-at-home policy, which projected potential deaths could be as high as 3,400 through Aug. 4.

Aronoff urged caution.

"Releasing the efforts and sending the message to the general public that the coast is clear when we're still seeing new case accumulation, increased testing or increased health care utilization would likely be a step in the wrong direction," he said. "I think this has to be taken in somewhat of a real-time basis and we have to see what tomorrow brings."

Staff writer Andy Sher contributed to this story.

Contact Patrick Filbin at pfilbin@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476. Follow him on Twitter @PatrickFilbin.

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