Skip to content

Gov. Bill Lee Remarks as Prepared for Delivery on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Governor Lee issued Executive Order 70 on Sunday, December 20, 2020 requesting restrictions over the holidays.
File Photo / The Lexington Progress

Release-

Governor Bill Lee prepared the following remarks after the issuance of Executive Order #70 on Sunday, December 20, 2021, which continues the state of emergency, limits indoor public gatherings to ten people, urges work from home when possible, and requests masks at work.

Good evening Tennesseans. It’s Christmas week, ordinarily a time when families across the state are gathering to celebrate. Unfortunately, these are not ordinary times. We are in a global pandemic that’s been crippling our country for months and now Tennessee is ground zero for a surge in sickness. I am speaking with you tonight because I want to be clear with where we are and what we need to do together to get through this.

We now have around 10,000 Tennesseans getting sick every day. To put that in perspective, that’s three times where we were around Halloween. Thousands of our neighbors are in the hospital tonight. More than 100 people are dying each day. We are in a war. With the arrivals of the first vaccine, we have launched an offensive that will end this war. But it is the next few weeks that is going to be the most critical for our state.

We have seen firsthand that Thanksgiving gatherings and extended time indoors have been the principal driver in spreading COVID-19 like wildfire. It only took a matter of days to see gatherings around Thanksgiving translate into a record level of sickness. Tennessee cannot…

For complete coverage, see the December 23rd edition of The Lexington Progress.

Subscribe Today!

Leave a Comment