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Austin's COVID-19 cases remain most concentrated in East side ZIP codes.
The mountain of COVID-19 data released every day in Austin is easier to understand with visual aids.
Once a week, Austonia is taking a look at the previous seven days of COVID-19 statistics, all with the very helpful graphics of Austin resident and Reddit user Rational Anarchy, who has been producing daily visuals and posting them in the forum.
(Updated Aug. 7. All graphics: Rational Anarchy/Reddit)
Travis County’s daily confirmed new COVID-19 cases stop decline, hit plateau
After two weeks of steady decline in the number of new COVID-19 cases and daily hospital admissions, both trend lines now appear to be in a plateau.
"That's better than a surge - but still dangerous," Austin Mayor Steve Adler said during his State of the City address on Wednesday.
The seven-day moving average of daily new confirmed cases has risen slightly, to 262 as of Thursday evening compared to 218 last week. The moving average of daily new hospital admissions is now 38, up slightly from 37.7 last week.
Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott is concerned the plateau could reverse track, especially if schools reopen and sports stadiums welcome back fans.
"We've seen over and over again, across the country and across the globe, that when communities relax too soon, it results in a bounce of cases and a repeat surge," he told county commissioners on Tuesday.
Travis County’s reported COVID-19 deaths hold steady
As of Thursday evening, Travis County reported 288 deaths, up from 266 deaths a week ago.
The local case fatality rate—defined as the number of reported deaths per confirmed cases—remains around 1.3%, compared to 1.1% on July 9. But the 14-day moving average number of daily reported deaths has declined slightly, to four from around six last week.
Dr. Escott has attributed the increase to the fact that most of the patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in late July were over 60—and at much higher risk of death.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Austin metro continue to decline
The total number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 is also declining. As of Thursday evening, 297 people were hospitalized with the virus in the five-county metro area, compared to 388 a week ago.
And ICU occupancy improved incrementally—only to bounce back
After six weeks of the ICU occupancy at more than 80%, it finally dipped to 78% on Tuesday evening, according to a joint update from Austin's three major hospital systems.
But on Friday, the three systems—Ascension Seton, Baylor Scott & White and St. David's HealthCare—reported an updated ICU occupancy rate of 82%.
Ventilator use is declining, however, with 73 people using them as of Thursday evening, compared to 97 a week ago.
Austin’s COVID-19 cases remain most concentrated on the East Side
New COVID-19 cases in Austin remain most densely concentrated on the city's East Side—and specifically in the ZIP codes 78744, 78753 and 78660.
Austin Public Health has opened testing sites in these areas to serve those most in need and has also targeted outreach to the city's Latino and Black populations, who are at the highest risk of being hospitalized with and dying from COVID-19.
Austin’s older residents remain most at risk of dying from COVID-19—amid other disparities
While young people age 20-39 make up nearly half of the total confirmed COVID-19 cases, they are much more likely to avoid hospitalization and recover.
In sharp contrast, people 60 years and older make up only 12% of confirmed COVID-19 cases but account for 80% of reported deaths, according to Austin Public Health.
Want to read more stories like this one? Start every day with a quick look at what's happening in Austin. Sign up for Austonia.com's free daily morning email.
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Popular
(Bob Daemmrich)
Hours following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, on Friday, about 1,000 people gathered in Republic Square with signs calling for change.
The rally, organized by the group Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights Texas, started at the federal courthouse on Republic Square on Friday at 5 p.m. before the crowd marched to the Texas Capitol. More protests are expected to ensue over the weekend.
People showed up with all types of signs like Mindy Moffa holding up, "Keep your filthy laws off my silky drawers."
Austin joined cities across the country that saw protests for a women's right to an abortion after the ruling.
According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
Sabrina Talghade and Sofia Pellegrini held up signs directed at Texas laws. A Texas trigger law will ban all abortions from the moment of fertilization, starting 30 days after the ruling. When state legislators passed the trigger law last summer, it also passed laws for more protection of firearms, including the right to open carry without a permit.
Lili Enthal of Austin yells as around 1,000 Texans marched to the Texas Capitol.
From the Texas Capitol, Zoe Webb lets her voice be heard against the Supreme Court ruling.
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(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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