Governor Bill Lee took the podium today for a Covid-19 press briefing. Lee started by referencing numbers such as the 14.7% unemployment rate in Tennessee which is the highest on record.

The state government is combating the growing unemployment by entering phase two of the statewide reopening on Friday. Lee praised the state’s testing ability for being the reason why Tennessee was able to open before many other states and move on to phase two before others as well.

“Our ability to quickly identify new cases through expanding testing efforts, has really been core in helping Tennesseans make decisions about their own health,” said Lee.

Lee also referenced a study performed by the Harvard Global Health Institute that declared that there are only seven states who are testing enough to consider reopening. Tennessee is one of those seven. The governor also added that Tennessee was “heralded as one of the best testing states in the country.”

Tennessee was one of the first states to provide Covid-19 testing for all prison inmates and staffs, urban development housing, and veterans’ homes.