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The moving average of daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases has largely stayed steady in Travis County since late July.
Local health officials report a plateau in new confirmed COVID-19 cases and decreased demand for testing as schools prepare to reopen at limited capacity.
"We're concerned that we are not decreasing at the same rapid pace that we were toward the middle and end of July," Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said Tuesday.
The seven-day moving average of daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases was 208, as of Monday evening, only slightly lower than the July 29 average of 213.
Last week Escott said Travis County appeared to be making progress, but that is no longer the case.
"We're having trouble pushing through this plateau," he said.
Decreased testing
With a deflated surge and reports of long wait times, Demand for Austin Public Health's free COVID testing service has plummeted. Although the department has the capacity to test up to a thousand people a day, only around 250 signed up for the service on Monday and 40 on Tuesday, Escott said.
As a result, APH is now offering testing to anyone who applies, regardless if the person is experiencing symptoms or has had known contact with the virus.
Despite the decreased demand for testing, APH is reporting decreasing positivity rates week-over-week. Currently, around 9% of tests conducted in Travis County are positive, down from a peak of 21.2% six weeks ago.
School-age children and young adults between the ages of 10 and 19 have had the highest or second highest positivity rates in Travis County over the last month. (Austin Public Health)
But there are some disparities within the testing data, including a much higher positivity rate among Latino residents and certain age groups. Residents between the ages of 10 and 19 have reported the highest or second-highest positivity rates over the last four weeks.
"This is our group that's going to school, going to college," Escott explained.
School plans
These trends are concerning because schools are scheduled to begin a phased reopening on Sept. 8, which will likely drive up transmission rates as students, teachers and staff commingle on campus.
Further decreases in new cases and hospitalizations would make reopenings safer, Escott said, and more likely to last, without the need for intermittent closures.
To this end, Austin Public Health released its interim guidance for schools last week, which recommends that campuses open at 25% capacity for at least the first few weeks, to gauge the risk and work out any kinks. Then, they should modulate capacity limits based on the local COVID risk assessment, using APH's guidelines.
The Austin-Travis County Health Authority adopted new emergency rules related to reopening schools. Austin Public H… https://t.co/Nfy69FHnKK— Austin Public Health (@Austin Public Health) 1597444927.0
"I think the most important thing right now is that students have an avenue for education for the entirety of the fall semester, and anything that is going to put that at risk, such as trying to put too many teachers and students in one place, is really going to threaten that continuity," Escott said.
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Popular
(Tesla)
Giga Texas, the massive Tesla factory in southeast Travis County is getting even bigger.
The company filed with the city of Austin this week to expand its headquarters with a new 500,000-square-foot building. The permit application notes “GA 2 and 3 expansion,” which indicates the company will make two general assembly lines in the building.
More details about the plans for the building are unclear. The gigafactory has been focused on Model Y production since it opened in April, but the company is also aiming for Cybertruck production to kick off in mid-2023.
While there is room for expansion on the 3.3 square miles of land Tesla has, this move comes after CEO Elon Musk’s recent comments about the state of the economy and its impact on Tesla.
In a May interview with Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, Musk said the gigafactories in Berlin and Austin are “gigantic money furnaces” and said Giga Texas had manufactured only a small number of cars.
And in June, Musk sent a company wide email saying Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10%, then later tweeted salaried headcount should be fairly flat.
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(Dullnig Ranch Sales)
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