Updated COVID-19 Information

The Hamilton County Health Department reported 346 new COVID-19 cases on Friday. The total number of people who have contracted COVID since the beginning of the pandemic now stands at 57,877.

Four deaths from COVID were reported on Friday, bringing the total number of people who have succumbed to the virus to 578.

There were 366 people being treated for COVID in area hospitals, which established a new record. Eighty-four patients were in intensive care units.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 3,404 people were afflicted in East Ridge. There are currently 164 active cases in the city.

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.