Tennessee to halt sharing COVID-19 patient data

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee will soon stop providing the names and addresses of COVID-19 patients to first responders, after initially arguing that doing so would protect those on the front line.

Gov. Bill Lee’s administration decided on the change this week, conceding that the data may have created a false sense of security to those responding to emergency calls. The data sharing will stop at the end of the month.

The announcement follows an Associated Press review that found public officials in at least two-thirds of states are sharing the addresses of people who tested positive with first responders. A small handful of those states, including Tennessee at the time, also shared the patients’ names.

Supporters argue that the information is vital to helping them take extra precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the coronavirus. Yet civil liberty and community activists have expressed repeated concerns of potential profiling in African American and Hispanic communities that already have an uneasy relationship with law enforcement.

“Individuals who have COVID-19 but who have not sought testing because they do not have symptoms may unintentionally transmit the virus to your personnel because the need to wear appropriate PPE was not apparent,” wrote Todd Skelton, legal counsel for Lee’s coronavirus task force, in a Tuesday email. “Therefore, first responders and law enforcement are encouraged to treat all close interactions with individuals with appropriate precautions.”

Skelton added that personal protection equipment is now “more readily attainable” for first responders. In his email, Skelton noted that more than 1.4 million PPE items had been shipped to law enforcement and others across the state.

Earlier this year, the Department of Health had originally declined to hand over the...