Emails between the Nashville, TN, mayor’s office and the Metro Health Department reveal a discussion of the low number of Covid19 cases that could be traced back to that city’s bars and restaurants – and how to keep that information from becoming public, Fox 17 reports.
In one email thread, health department official Brian Todd is asked by Tennessee Lookout reporter Nate Rau, “The figure you gave of ‘more than 80’ does lead to a natural question: If there have been over 20,000 positive cases of COVID-19 in Davidson and only 80 or so are traced to restaurants and bars, doesn’t that mean restaurants and bars aren’t a very big problem?”
Todd then asks five health department officials, “Please advise how you recommend I respond.”
“My two cents. We have certainly refused to give counts per bar because those numbers are low per site,” one of those officials, whose name is not visible, responds.
“We could still release the total though, and then a response to the over 80 could be because that number is increasing all the time and we don’t want to say a specific number.”
Nashville City Council Member Steve Glover harshly criticized the officials involved, accusing them of fabricating information and saying their credibility had been severely damaged.
“We raised taxes 34 percent and put hundreds, literally thousands of people out of work that are now worried about losing their homes, their apartments…and we did it on bogus data. That should be illegal,” Glover said.
Photo by Michael Rivera