The coronavirus outbreak in Nashville that once centered in Antioch and other southeastern neighborhoods is shifting to the city’s center, spreading among downtown residents and patrons of bars, honky-tonks and other crowded Lower Broadway businesses.

The city government on Tuesday released heat maps showing the virus is spreading fastest and furthest in the downtown area, and leaders said the outbreak threatens to push hospitals to the brink in the coming weeks or months if left unchecked.

The virus moving downtown also means new infections are shifting from older, Latino populations to younger, non-Latino residents, said Dr.

Infections are rising among downtown residents, many of whom live clustered in the high-rise apartments of the Nashville skyline.

Health Director Michael Caldwell said pedal taverns and similar vehicles are preferable to bars because they are outside and therefore less likely to spread the virus.

As of Tuesday, the coronavirus had spread to more than 12,000 Nashville residents, of which approximately 4,000 remain actively infected and 167 are currently hospitalized.

The escalating outbreak was affirmed Monday by new analysis from the Vanderbilt University Department of Health Policy, which reported the transmission rate of the virus was rising both in Nashville and across the state.

The Vanderbilt analysis stated Nashville’s transmission rate — a measurement of how many uninfected people catch the virus from each infected person — rose from as high as 1.16 to 1.32 in the past week?

During a news conference on Tuesday morning, Mayor John Cooper referenced the rising transmission rate as he drew a worrisome comparison between Nashville and Houston, city with a similarly massive health care industry.

“The city of Houston has an average transmission rate of just 1.2, which is below our transmission rate,” Cooper said.

Jahangir, the head of the city’s coronavirus task force, said he held daily conversations with state officials about a hospital overflow plan that would activate an emergency coronavirus wing at Nashville General Hospital

Jahangir said he just didn’t know

Six weeks?” Jahangir said