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(Baylor Scott & White Health/Facebook)
Austin Public Health officials held a moment of silence at a press conference Friday after the city tied for its record-high number previously set on July 24, 2020 with 12 COVID deaths. The city also saw 36 Austinites lose their lives to COVID this week, the highest of this summer's surge.
The single-day death toll was the highest since July 24, 2020, while the weekly deaths for the week of Sept. 3 nearly doubled from a week prior, when 19 residents lost their lives to COVID. The first surge spiked to 38 deaths in the week of July 23, 2020.
Weekly death rates are now higher than the same time last year as one child (with previous health conditions) died from COVID in the Austin area for the first time. The week of Sept. 4 saw nine deaths in 2020.
Austin Public Health officials said they were "cautiously optimistic" as cases and hospitalizations dipped for the first time in the third summer surge, but deaths and pediatric cases remain a concern as Austin public schools work to curb the surge in their in-person classrooms.
At the press conference, Austin Public Health officials said schools and large events with both unvaccinated and vaccinated people, including the University of Texas' first home football game on Saturday, could continue to add to the surge.
"The tailgating and parties are the places where we're really, really concerned that there may be some transmission, because those are situations where people will be close together in close contact congregating likely en masse and for long periods of time," Austin Public Health Authority Desmar Walkes said. "We want this to be a successful game for UT fans and that mask is really going to make a difference."
Austin Public Health officials reminded Austinites to stay safe during Labor Day weekend festivities, especially if unvaccinated, and do some "self-care" by wearing masks and getting vaccinated.
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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)
You’ll have to leave city limits if you’re looking for a proper ranch property like 417 Acres Shipp Lake Ranch, aptly named for its acreage. The property comes built out with three farmhouses, one of which has bedrooms and two bathrooms and two of which have two bedrooms and one bathroom. The nearly untouched property, which surrounds the 100-plus-acre Shipp Lake, has remained in the same family since the early 1900s and gives you picturesque views for the making of a dream home. In fact, the previous owners ran a water ski camp on the property.
Sitting waterside on Lake Austin, this home gives you the unique opportunity to own a piece of the lush Hill Country with views of Mount Bonnell. The 2,750-square foot, three-bedroom, four-bathroom house allows you to integrate indoor and outdoor life with large windows opening to an outdoor living area. The crown jewel is the .76-acre parcel of land that tapers off to your own lakeside resort, featuring an covered outdoor kitchen, fire pit, stone boat house to store your water sports supplies and veranda sitting at the mouth of the water, perfect for an entertainer.
Got dreams of becoming a real Texas rancher? 7814 Brown Cemetery Rd. is the perfect place to start with 40 rolling acres of land and its very own swimming hole. Just east of Austin in Manor, the modest-on-the-outside home clocks at 4,412 square feet with five bedrooms and five-and-a-half bathrooms, but there are an additional two living structures on the property. The horseshoe-shaped pond sits in the heart of the property and comes equipped with a water slide, diving board and a fishing dock.