After closing for six weeks, hospitals and surgery centers in Chattanooga, Tenn., will begin elective procedures May 4, the Times Free Press reports.
What you should know:
1. Chattanooga's largest hospital, Erlanger Medical Center, began performing elective procedures May 1. It is in the process of rescheduling certain specialty procedures like gastroenterology procedures or mammograms that will occur in the coming weeks.
2. Chattanooga never experienced a surge of COVID-19 patients. The Hamilton County Health Department said Chattanooga hospitals had 232 vacant hospital beds, including 51 intensive care unit beds and 357 ventilators that were not in use this week. The county had 156 people who tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 30. Eighty-eight of those patients recovered, and most of the remaining patients weren't sick enough to be hospitalized.
3. Competing Chattanooga hospital CHI Memorial plans to reopen its physician practices May 4 and will restart elective procedures later in the week.