Has anyone begged lately for everyone to wear a mask, practice social distancing, and care for their fellow man?
Yes, but many Tennesseans do not heed the pleas. The numbers show how sad it is.
New records of cases.
New records of deaths.
Alas, for those of you who do care, please keep it up

Coronavirus cases rising steadily, up 16.5% in the past week.
Coronavirus deaths rose dramatically, 47 deaths in the past week.
Nearly seven deaths a day.
Of the 5 Benchmarks sorta, kinda used to determine how Knox County will handle managing the coronavirus, all 5 are in the Red.

*** As of December 11, the 7-day average was 24.4% (up from 19.4% last week, which was up from 15.3% the week before that).
Positivity rate preferred to be below 3%.
Currently when going to the State of TN Dept Health Coronavirus website for this info get a 404 error.
As of December 12, 2020, Knox County is in the Red Zone and has been since November 8, 2020.

The Knox County Health Department reports

26,388 coronavirus cases and 2,073 probable cases.

That's 3,728 new cases in the past week,
That's a 16.5% increase over one week ago.

There are 136 Knox County COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized.
Five more than a week ago.

There have been 258 deaths in Knox County from COVID-19.
Forty-seven deaths due to COVID-19 in the past week.
That's a 22.3% increase in deaths in the past week (211 as of 12/12, 186 as of December 5).

8 in the 18-44 age group (3%)
31 in the 45-64 age group (12%)
61 in the 65-74 age group (24%)
158 in the 75+ age group (61%)

As of December 15, 2020, ICU Bed availability is at 8.8% (284 ICU beds total with 25 beds available) .
ICU bed availability is up as compared to a week ago.
(Note, The week of 12/1/2020, ICU bed capacity rose to 284, the week of 9/1/2020, ICU bed capacity was 278, then the week of 9/8/2020, ICU bed capacity was raised to 374, then the week of Sept. 22 ICU bed capacity has been reduced back down to 278.)
(Note, prior to the 8/4/2020 report, ICU bed capacity was 272. It would appear that Knox County hospitals have increased ICU bed capacity by 6 beds.)

The County Health Department has a map with the number of coronavirus cases per zip code.
On December 10, 2020, these zip codes were reported with the most cases:

37918 has the most cases with 2,237 cases (population 44,476) (15.6% increase)

37920 with 2,057 cases (population 39,000) (16.0% increase)
37922 with 1,841 cases (population 41,539) (18.2% increase)
37919 with 1,499 cases (population 28,000) (15.4% increase)
37923 with 1,493 cases (population 30,000) (19.0% increase)
37921 with 1,492 cases (population 28,000) (14.0% increase)
37917 with 1,092 cases (population 27,000) (12.6% increase)
37916 with 1,071 cases (population 12,507) (2.1% increase)

Be careful out there.