More than 1,500 COVID Cases Reported over the Last Two Days

The Hamilton County Health Department reported 1,516 new COVID-19 cases over the two day period of Jan. 5 and 6.

Health department officials did not report on COVID numbers on Wednesday due to a technical glitch.

The total number of cases in the county since the beginning of the pandemic climbed to 74,557. The number of deaths stood at 785.

Hospitalizations climbed to 173 with 37 patients in area hospital ICUs.

There are 31 active cases in East Ridge, according to health department figures. Since the beginning of the pandemic 4,412 people in our city have been stricken by the virus.

Due to the threat of inclement weather, the health department is closing its Tennessee Riverpark vaccination site and postponing the COVID vaccination event at the Super Carniceria Loa on Chickamauga Road Friday, January 7th.

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.