In Anderson County, 53-54% of residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and more than 100,000 vaccine doses have been injected, according to the Tennessee Department of Health.
State vaccination data said 41,683 Anderson County residents were fully vaccinated as of December 29. That’s out of an estimated 77,123 residents.
COVID-19 cases surged up this week in Anderson County and four adjacent counties—Campbell, Knox, Loudon, and Roane—to the highest levels since near the peak of the delta surge in mid-September. The positivity rate was very high, more than 20%, in all five counties.
On Wednesday, Anderson County reported 80 or more cases for the second day in a row, the highest since September 16. The 80 new cases reported Wednesday followed the reporting of 87 new cases on Tuesday, according to Tennessee Department of Health data.
Anderson County reported 83 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, the most in more than three months, and the positivity rate spiked to 24%, which is very high.
It’s not clear if the spike in cases and positivity rate is due to the new omicron variant, the older delta variant, or a mixture of the two.
The last time more than 80 cases were reported was on September 16, when 87 new cases were reported near the peak of the delta surge.
The delta surge, the third of the pandemic in Anderson County, peaked at 152 new cases on September 10.
COVID-19 cases fell after that, averaging about 16 to 17 new cases per day through much of November, before rising past a higher average of 20 new cases per day in early December, according to Tennessee Department of Health data.
The Tuesday spike helped push the seven-day average of cases past 30 new cases per day for the first time since October 7.
[Read more…]
The average number of COVID-19 cases per day rose quickly in early December in Anderson County, and the number has been generally slowly falling since December 7.
It’s not clear if the abrupt rise in early December was related to family gatherings during the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving was about 1.5 weeks before the early December peak of 28.7 new cases per day on December 7.
By Sunday, the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases in Anderson County had fallen to 22.4 per day, according to data from the Tennessee Department of Health.
The average number of cases has averaged in the 20s so far in December. That’s up from an average in the teens starting in late October but still far below the peak of an average 89.6 new cases per day on September 11. That peak was the height of the summertime delta surge in Anderson County.
[Read more…]
More than 30 farmers, bakers, and artisan crafters are moving indoors Saturday, December 4, for the sixth season of the Winter Farmers’ Market, which will be open Saturdays through March from 9 a.m. to noon.
The market is located in the gym at St. Mary’s School at 323 Vermont Avenue in Oak Ridge. Customers may shop in person or choose curbside pickup or home delivery through the Market-To-Go program.
“The Winter Farmers’ Market brings local food and local folks together in a unique and fun way, with great food, live music, cooking demonstrations, free kids’ activities, artisan crafts, and more, indoors all winter,” said Rebecca Williams, director of Grow Oak Ridge, the local nonprofit that produces the market.
“We have two ways to shop again this year: in-person and online through Market-To-Go.”
The market offers an abundance of locally grown cool season produce like kale, spinach, lettuce, and gourmet mushrooms, and even some winter strawberries and tomatoes, a press release said. It also carries free-range eggs, pasture-raised meats, tilapia, local honey, artisan breads, pastries, unique handmade bath and body products, and handmade gifts from local artisans.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee did not renew the COVID-19 state of emergency that expired Friday night, but he reserved the right to use it again if there are future surges of the virus.
“I am not renewing the COVID-19 state of emergency that expires tonight,” Lee said in a brief statement Friday. “For almost 20 months, this tool has provided deregulation and operational flexibility for hospitals and industries most affected by COVID’s challenges. Should our state face any future surges, we will consider temporarily reinstating this tool, but in the meantime, we are evaluating opportunities for permanent deregulation.”
In the third major statewide surge, this one caused by the delta variant, COVID-19 cases peaked in Anderson County in the first half of September, with a high seven-day average of 89.6 cases on September 11 and a peak of 152 cases on September 10. New cases fell after that but plateaued at about 15-17 new cases per day in late October, and they have remained there for about three weeks. That’s still considerably higher than the summer low average of fewer than one new COVID case per day, on average, in late June and early July, before the delta variant surge started in about mid-July.
[Read more…]Note: This story was last updated at 7 a.m. Nov. 16.
The face mask mandate at Oak Ridge Schools has been terminated in response to new state legislation signed into law by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee.
The second part of a forum about Medicaid expansion will be online at lunchtime Tuesday, featuring two legislators who have supported Medicaid expansion.
The legislators are Tennessee Senator Richard Briggs, a physician, and Representative Gloria Johnson, a retired educator.
The virtual forum is scheduled to start at noon Tuesday, November 16. You can register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting (learn more here).
Here is the Tuesday agenda:
[Read more…]
Covenant Health is among the hospital organizations in the Knoxville area that will comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for facilities that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
The hospitals announced on Thursday that they plan to comply.
“On November 4, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for health care facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs to protect health care workers, patients, families, and visitors from COVID-19,” a press release said. “CMS is very clear that non-compliance with this mandate will result in severe penalties to hospitals, up to and including exclusion from participation in Medicare.”
Covenant includes Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge and other local health care facilities.
Other organizations planning to comply with the vaccine mandate include Blount Memorial Hospital, East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, Sweetwater Hospital Association, and The University of Tennessee Medical Center.
[Read more…]
Medicaid expansion will be discussed during a virtual forum Tuesday. It’s the first of two community forums about expanding Medicaid in Tennessee.
The first forum is scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 2. It will feature professionals discussing the need for expanding Medicaid, a press release said.
The second forum, scheduled for November 16, will feature legislators discussing ways to achieve this goal, the press release said.
“Failure to expand Medicaid in Tennessee is severely impacting the health and welfare of Tennesseans,” the press release said. It said there are more than 300,000 uninsured Tennesseans, and Tennessee is second in the number of hospital closures and leads the nation in terms of hospital closures per capita. Also, many of the uninsured are essential workers whose lack of insurance places them at increased risk just to care for their families, the press release said. And Tennessee is failing to accept $900 million in federal money that would cover the cost of expansion for more than six years, the release said.
[Read more…]
The executive order issued by President Joe Biden in September requires federal employees to be fully vaccinated by November 22, the U.S. Department of Energy said. DOE said 84 percent of the department’s federal workforce was, at the time, fully vaccinated.
To comply with the November 22 deadline, DOE’s employees must complete their vaccinations by November 8. This would apply to the first Johnson & Johnson shot, a one-shot vaccine, or the second Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech shots, both two-shot vaccines. People aren’t considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after the final dose of a vaccine.
The U.S. Department of Energy notified its staff of the vaccine requirement on Tuesday last week.
“Protecting your health and safety is our top priority,” DOE told its staff. “To help ensure this, President Biden issued an executive order requiring all federal employees to be fully vaccinated by November 22, 2021. This applies to all federal employees regardless of remote, telework, or onsite reporting status, except in limited circumstances in which an employee may be exempt due to a legally required accommodation.”
[Read more…]
Atomic Elks Lodge 1301 and Roberta Bohanon Temple 1381 are sponsoring a vaccine clinic in Scarboro on Saturday, September 25.
The clinic is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at 262 Wilberforce Avenue in Oak Ridge. The vaccine is provided through a partnership with New Direction Healthcare Solutions Inc. and Winbigler Medical, an event flyer said.
