A series of weekly White House reports to Governor Bill Lee's office describe a worsening pandemic in Tennessee and across the country, and include recommendations for how state leaders should respond.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force reports have recommended mask mandates, increased testing at universities and urgent messaging about methods to stop the spread of the virus.
Lee and other leaders appear to have taken some of the recommendations from the public heath doctors and disregarded others, but as the pandemic continues to grow more dire in the state -- the governor's messaging has grown stronger.
As of December 13, 2020, the report added an entirely new tier of severity to its scale --"darkest red" -- because COVID-19 cases, test positivity rates and deaths in Tennessee and other parts of the country began to eclipse the previous scale. Its scale now assigns each of Tennessee's 95 counties a color (green, yellow, orange, red, dark red, darkest red) based on rate of spread of COVID-19 the previous week.
As of January 10, 2021 -- Tennessee had the third-highest rate of new cases per 100,000 in the country. All of Tennessee's 95 counties were reported in the "red" with at least 200 new cases per 100,000, with all but four in at least "dark red" of having at least 500 per 100,000, and nearly half of East Tennessee in the worst tier of "darkest red" of having 750 or more per 100,000 in the past 14 days.
10News obtained the reports below through weekly public records requests.
January 10, 2021
December 13, 2020
December 6, 2020
November 29, 2020
November 22, 2020
November 15, 2020
November 8, 2020
November 1, 2020
October 25, 2020
October 18, 2020