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Last week, the Texas Department of State Health Services provided the first glimpse at county-level COVID-19 testing data.
As of April 8, Travis County had tested 6,221 people for the coronavirus, per the state data. Test results are not immediately available, so it's unclear what the exact rate of positive results is. On that same day, local officials reported 597 cases—just under 10% of the total number of county residents tested.
The Dallas Morning News calculated the per-capita test rate of the 10 most populous Texas counties. Travis leads the pack, with 49 tests per 10,000 residents, ahead of Dallas, with 36 tests per capita, and Harris, with 27. The overall state rate is 33 tests per 10,000 residents.
Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott told Travis County commissioners this morning that he expects local testing access to improve as labs increase their processing capacity and rapid testing is rolled out at hospitals.
"As we continue on through April and into May, we're going to see more testing available and faster results," Dr. Escott said.
Antibody blood tests are also coming, but Dr. Escott said people should not look to these results to confirm if they are contagious.
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(Sean Anderson/CC)
A handful of lawsuits accusing InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of defamation against Sandy Hook victims will be allowed to move forward, despite Jones's attempts to squash them, The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday.
<p>The four lawsuits, filed by parents of two children killed in the shooting on Dec. 14, 2012, were filed in Travis County, where Jones is based. The parents argue they have suffered emotional distress after Jones's comments.</p><p>In reference to the deadly shooting, in which 20 young children and eight adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, Jones claimed that "no one died" because it was a staged operation to demonize guns. After these comments, some of his followers reportedly harassed and stalked parents who were involved.</p><p>Neil Heslin, father of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, filed two lawsuits taking issue with Jones's statements that the Sandy Hook shooting was "a giant hoax" and disputing that Heslin held his dead son in his arms afterward. </p><p>Scarlett Lewis, mother of Jesse Lewis, took issue with Jones's statement saying the shooting was "as phony as a three dollar bill" and doubting the parents' grieving.</p><p>Citing that Jones believed the shooting was a "false flag" operation put on by gun activists, Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, filed a suit.</p><p>Similarly, after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people, Jones made claims that students involved were "crisis actors" in a "deep state false flag operation." Jones also attacked survivor David Hogg, who was 17 at the time.</p><p>Another defamation lawsuit, relating to InfoWars misidentifying the Parkland shooter, was also allowed to move forward by The Texas Supreme Court. The incorrect information was left on the site for 13 hours, without a correction issued after it was taken down.</p><p>The Texas Supreme Court rejected all of the attempted dismissals on behalf of Jones's legal team without comment. However, Justices Jeff Boyd and John Devine dissented on the Pozner suit without giving a reason.</p><p>Jones rescinded his claims during a deposition in 2019, saying he was under a "form of psychosis" that made him believe the shootings and "basically ... everything was staged." He said this distrust resulted from "the media and the corporations lying so much."</p><p>Jones has a history of spreading misinformation, starting in the early 2010s, and has started many prevalent conspiracy theories. Jones has been vocal about conspiracies that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job, drinking water is contaminated with chemicals that "turn the freaking frogs gay" and that Democratic officials are involved in a sex-trafficking ring.</p>
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(Ascension Seton)
With an extremely limited vaccine supply, Austin Public Health is now focusing its distribution events on individuals who are 65 years of age or older, public health officials said Friday.
"We have more than 129,000 of (people in this category)," APH Director Stephanie Hayden-Howard said Friday, adding Austin residents who do not fall into this demographic group to be patient.
<p>APH has received 25,300 doses of the COVID vaccine from the state since the federal rollout began in mid-December, with the vast majority of those doses arriving in the last two weeks. Austin Public Health has administered 18,427 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine—or around 73% of its total supply—to community members as of Thursday.<br/></p><p>Despite the bumpiness of the rollout—which has been mired by mixed messages, tech glitches and limited supply—Austinites may start to see the benefits of mass vaccination among the elderly. The area could see deaths and hospitalizations decrease, as the virus has the most severe symptoms for those individuals. </p><p>"As we gain herd immunity within those age groups, we start to see the threat of overwhelming our healthcare system dissipate very quickly," Escott said, adding that by March or April the metro could reasonably vaccinate the 70% of people 65 years of age needed to achieve herd immunity in that group.</p><p>However, APH is constrained by the number of vaccines it is allocated by the state—and a lack of lead time. The Texas Department of State Health Services typically announces its weekly allocations on Sunday, which means that providers such as APH cannot schedule appointments or set up distribution events more than a few days in advance. <br/></p><p>"Is it frustrating? Yes." Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said of this process. "Mostly because there's not enough." </p><p>People in that age group can sign up for APH's<a href="https://austonia.com/aph-vaccine-portal" target="_self"> pre-registration system</a>. As its vaccine supply is replenished, it will alert those on the list about available appointments.</p><p>In the meantime, Escott offered the advice he has given to his parents and in-laws: "Sign up for whatever list you can sign up for," he said. "Because it's not clear who's getting vaccines next week and who's not."</p><p>Readers can find area vaccine waitlists <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-vaccine-waitlists" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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