Knoxville Biz Ticker: BlueCross Foundation providing $250,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee
The Knoxville News-Sentinel 12/30/2020 Knoxville News Sentinel
BlueCross Foundation providing $250,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. The BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Foundation is giving $250,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee to help meet the needs of community members affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This gift provides additional support following the $500,000 the foundation awarded to Second Harvest in March.
Food banks across the state have been facing increased demand since the onset of the
pandemic, as many Tennesseans turn to them for support. While many organizations have been able to sustain operations throughout 2020, donations are leveling off and the beginning of 2021 remains uncertain.
Knoxville Biz Ticker: BlueCross Foundation providing $250,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee
The Knoxville News-Sentinel 12/30/2020 Knoxville News Sentinel
BlueCross Foundation providing $250,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. The BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Foundation is giving $250,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee to help meet the needs of community members affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This gift provides additional support following the $500,000 the foundation awarded to Second Harvest in March.
Food banks across the state have been facing increased demand since the onset of the
pandemic, as many Tennesseans turn to them for support. While many organizations have been able to sustain operations throughout 2020, donations are leveling off and the beginning of 2021 remains uncertain.
In the first Memphis-Shelby County COVID-19 task force briefing since the new health directive was announced, health officials sought to relay context around COVID-19 fatalities, announced relief efforts for service industry employees, and defended their decision to enact the next health directive after the Christmas holiday.
After running through an update on COVID-19 data points, Shelby County Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter reminded listeners of how critical the next steps are from both health systems and individuals in Shelby County. The rate of infections and associated fatalities in Shelby County, Haushalter said, are very much on the line. We know we re in a surge, but we re not at the top of the surge, Haushalter said, before stating the importance of individual and organizational actions in an effort to blunt the curve of COVID-19.
For Dr. Manoj Jain, the unrelenting increase in Shelby County’s COVID-19 cases has a straightforward consequence: more deaths.
Since March, more than 800 people locally have died from complications of the virus. An additional almost 1,000 could die in the next two months, according to new modeling from Jain and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, which assumes a 1.35 percent death rate and an upward-trending infection rate.
Shelby County soon could be on track to see 16 COVID-related deaths daily.
It doesn’t have to be that way, says Jain, an infectious disease advisor to the City of Memphis.
“If we take aggressive measures now, we can make an impact,” he said during a press conference Tuesday.
Vaccine Q&A: Dr. McCullers, Infectious Disease Specialist, UTHSC, answers questions on COVID-19 vaccine
Dr. McCullers answers questions on COVID-19 vaccine By WMC Action News 5 Staff | December 22, 2020 at 10:19 PM CST - Updated January 12 at 12:05 PM
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - The coronavirus vaccine rollout is underway across the Mid-South with questions surfacing each day.
We sat down with Dr. Jon McCullers, Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Pediatrician in Chief at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital to answer questions about the vaccine.
Early Tuesday, McCullers tweeted alarming information about the mortality rate in Shelby County. He said based on county data 12 people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of Monday could likely die in a few weeks.