For the first time, Tennessee officials will release county-level fatality data during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday.

The move comes after pressure to release the information has mounted from medical professionals, journalists and transparency advocates in recent days.

Lee's decision is the second time in recent weeks that his administration has reversed course on releasing information related to COVID-19, which as of Tuesday had infected at least 2,239 Tennesseans and killed 23.

Lee said Monday that he was "committed to transparency" but could not release county-level fatality data at that time for legal reasons. His administration did not explain what those legal reasons were, and the governor suggested they might be overcome.

"We want information to get out there," Lee said, adding later: "We are exploring that very particular issue because we think we might be able to work through those legal challenges."

On Tuesday, Lee said the state will likely be making county-level death data available on the Department of Health's website by the end of the week.

The governor said Tennessee was among a group of states that were legally bound by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as a "HIPAA hybrid entity." This means that some portions of the state's health care operations are covered by the federal privacy law and other functions are not.

"We pushed because we wanted to provide that transparency," he said, noting the state pursued a "legal decision" to allow the release of county-level fatalities.

In the department's latest reports, the agency for the first time Tuesday began releasing the number of negative tests on a county level. Before the update, the website contained just positive tests in each county.

The coronavirus outbreak is being tracked by state officials across the nation, but the information they release can vary broadly depending on where you live. Tennessee’s decision to begin releasing deaths by county aligns it with a majority of other southeastern states, according to a Tennessean review of coronavirus information published by 14 Southern states.

Nine of these states identify the counties where patients die in daily updates on their coronavirus website, and state officials in at least two more states — Kentucky and West Virginia — have announced these counties in public statements.

Arkansas and Maryland also release the number of patients who have recovered. Tennessee began releasing this information for the first time on Tuesday.

In Louisiana, where an outbreak in New Orleans threatens to be among the worst in the nation, the health department publishes both a count of virus cases and deaths per parish and a daily tally of the number of hospitalized patients on ventilators. And in Florida, one of the most transparent states in the country, state officials maintain a public list of more than 6,000 coronavirus patients — excluding their names but including demographics and travel history.

Prior to Lee's decision to release the county-level data, Dr. David Aronoff, the director of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said Tuesday such information would be helpful when responding to the virus. Potentially, this information could reveal where the state is running out of health care resources, he said.

“It gives us more of an idea of where ICU beds are needed and being used, and it may help in terms of thinking about deployment of resources, for example,” Aronoff said. “I think it just provides more context as to the disease and helps us convey some understanding to the community about what they should be doing to prevent the spread."

Although Lee's latest decision will provide the public with more data about COVID-19, in other areas the administration continues to decline to release information.

Last week, the Department of Health declined to say which hospitals and nursing homes in the state have reported positive COVID-19 cases among personnel, citing privacy.

At least one hospital is releasing this information on its own. Vanderbilt University Medical Center said that Monday that 86 employees had tested positive for the disease, including some nurses and a small number of doctors.

Another agency, the Tennessee Department of Correction, similarly is declining release certain information about COVID-19.

Faith Seifuddin, a spokeswoman for the department, confirmed March 23 that two inmates somewhere in the state prison system had been tested tor COVID-19. She said testing was not available inside the facilities and that the inmates had been tested at outside hospitals. Both those tests were negative.

Asked for an update on Tuesday, Seifuddin declined to release additional details on the number of tests administered to inmates and staff connected to the system.

“We will notify if you if an inmate tests positive, but any staff positive tests will be reported by the Department of Health or Department of Human Resources,” she said in an email.

Seifuddin directed further questions to an FAQ page on the state website that does not include details on the number of tests administered in connection to the prison system.

The latest release of information from the Lee administration comes roughly three weeks after state officials initially refused to share which counties had confirmed cases of the coronavirus. After facing backlash, the state reversed course and began sharing such information.

Anita Wadhwani and Mariah Timms contributed to this report.

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Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com or 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.