Under 1% of Nashville Covid-19 Cases Traced to Bars and Restaurants

The bar and restaurant industries operate on razor-thin margins and with heated competition in the best of times. If you talk to anyone in the business outside of pizza, which has boomed during the pandemic because it's optimized for takeout and delivery, the stories of struggles are astounding.

This week, Fox 17 in Nashville obtained data from the health department that says there were 51 cases contact traced to bars and 95 to restaurants. Thus, a total of 146 cases out of 25,347 positive cases were traced to bars and restaurants. That equates to .58 percent.

While the Fox 17 report says that it's plausible more cases stemmed from bars and restaurants that were just not traced to them, this is a staggeringly low number. Yes, you can say this is at least partially attributable to capacity restrictions and early closing time, but there's also the question of how much economic hardship was imposed on owners and workers in the hospitality industry. And what are the second derivatives of these regulations in the form of business closures and personal despair?

Here is a list of Nashville bars and restaurants that have closed during the pandemic.

Correction: An earlier version of this story referenced a previous Fox 17 story about emails between the mayor's office and the health department, which did not include full context of the communication and has since been taken down by the outlet.