Update on COVID-19 Information

The Hamilton County Health Department reported 174 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, Sept. 23, bringing the total number of people who have contracted the virus since the beginning of the pandemic to 60,750.

The virus claimed one more life on Thursday. The total number of people to have succumbed to COVID since the beginning of the pandemic now stands at 611.

There were 260 people being treated for COVID in area hospitals on Sept. 23. Seventy-six people are now being treated in Intensive Care Units.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 3,584 people living in East Ridge have contracted COVID-19. There are currently 165 active cases in the city as of Sept. 16, the latest figures provided by the health department.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.