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Did Nashville City Officials Attempt to Conceal Covid Transmission Rates?
Business owners in Nashville may soon be asking hard questions of Mayor John Cooper and the Nashville Metro Health Department.
Leaked internal emails between the Nashville mayor’s office and the Nashville Metro Health Department suggest officials attempted to conceal information about the low number of COVID-19 cases linked to the city’s bars and restaurants.
In the emails, officials from the Mayor’s office and the health department not only discuss the low number of COVID-19 cases coming out of the Nashville bars and restaurants, they also discuss keeping that information concealed from the public.
In one email, Leslie Waller from the health department asks, “This isn’t going to be publicly released, right? Just info for Mayor’s Office?”
“Correct, not for public consumption,” replies senior advisor Benjamin Eagles.
The emails reveal that contract tracing in June showed construction sites and nursing homes were seeing the worst of the COVID-19 spread, with over a thousand cases linked to each category.
Bars and restaurants accounted for just 22 cases.
A month later, a reporter from the Tennessee Lookout asked the health department directly about a rumor that only 80…