A Nashville news station is reporting that there are close to 780 novel coronavirus COVID-19 cases, nearly 110 cases more than what the Tennessee Department of Health is reporting. Two Tennesseans have died from the virus.
NewsChannel 5 said there were 773 reported cases of the coronavirus in the state of Tennessee, according to its independent count. The Tennessee Dept. of Health reported 667 COVID-19 cases as of 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The station said it “is keeping an independent count of cases due to discrepancies between state and local numbers.” The station said according to the Tennessee Dept. of Health, “the labs notify local jurisdictions first, so public health and providers can follow up with those patients,” so the station’s numbers may have higher reported cases in some counties than those provided by the state.
The TN Dept. of Health State Public Health Laboratory reported Tuesday afternoon that it has completed 1,031 tests, with 955 testing negative and 76 testing positive.
All other commercial and private laboratories reported 591 tested positive, with never before released data about the number of negative tests (9,522) and total number of tests completed (10,113) being made available Tuesday.
Those 534 who have tested positive are from 48 different counties in Tennessee, while 95 are from outside Tennessee and 38 are pending, stats from the Health Department show. Davidson County has the highest confirmed cases with 183 reported, 99 in Shelby County, 64 in Williamson County and 34 confirmed cases in Sumner County.
TN.gov also included the age ranges of the state’s confirmed cases:
0-10: 9
11-20: 41
21-30: 193
31-40: 126
41-50: 89
51-60: 91
61-70: 65
71-80: 34
80+: 12
Pending: 7
The Tennessee Dept. of Health noted that the data is meant to provide a rough estimate of testing volume and that due to different source data, numbers may differ slightly from day to day. They also noted that lab reports of positive cases are reported to metro and local health departments as soon as results are available. Since state numbers are updated at 2 p.m. daily, there might be a lag in the reporting of cumulative numbers at the state level.
The department also noted that some deaths may be reported by health care providers, hospitals, medical examiners, local health departments, or others before they are included in the statewide count.