19 More Deaths Due to COVID; 248 New Positive Cases

The Hamilton County Health Department reported 19 additional COVID-19 Deaths on Monday and 248 new positive cases.

The total number of cases in the county since the beginning of the pandemic now stands at 68,617. The number of people who have succumbed to the virus now stands at 772. The county has 1,840 active cases.

The Tennessee Department of Health is reporting a substantial increase in the number of COVID deaths for Hamilton County due to the review of death certificates by the state’s medical examiner. The backlog coincided with the Delta surge, officials said. The majority of those deaths happened since August.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.