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(Matthew/Adobe)
The University of Texas at Austin reported 72 COVID cases among students on Wednesday.
The University of Texas at Austin reported 42 new COVID-19 cases among students on Wednesday, bringing its total caseload to 72 since classes began last week.
This jump follows confirmation on Monday that two students living in on-campus residence halls had tested positive for the disease. Last weekend, residents of the off-campus Scottish Rite Dormitory received notification that one of their peer residents had tested positive for COVID.
UT Austin's COVID-19 dashboard shows 42 new cases among students were reported Wednesday.(UT Austin COVID-19 Dashboard)
The university said in early August that it aimed to test up to 5,000 asymptomatic members of its campus community each week. Since Sunday, the university has tested 1,072 students, faculty and staff, with 18 returning positive results, according to its public dashboard.
This puts the university's positivity rate at around 1.6%. In comparison, Travis County reported a positivity rate of 6.2% last week.
Remember how I said @UTAustin had reported 24 student COVID-19 cases in September? That number has more than doubl… https://t.co/fhLF8uMJQM— Megan Menchaca (@Megan Menchaca)1599109523.0
Researchers at UT Austin's own COVID-19 Modeling Consortium conservatively estimated between 82 and 183 students would return to campus with the disease during the first week of classes.
The research team, led by consortium director and professor of integrative biology Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers, arrived at this estimate by assuming 22,000 students will return to campus—less than half of the university's total enrollment —and that 0.5% of them will be infected, based on the estimated prevalence of COVID-19 in the Austin metro and students' home counties in mid-August.
"Contacts between residents end returning students may exacerbate risks, fuel transmission and deplete public health resources," the researchers wrote in a report published on Aug. 20.
Before classes even started, there was backlash online as a photo circulated on social media showing an off-campus gathering of Greek life members.
Photo taken by my colleague on UT’s west campus today. Sorority rush. No masks, but if you look closely they are we… https://t.co/pfqDihZ18V— Catherine Weaver (@Catherine Weaver)1598317015.0
In an Aug. 21 email sent to the campus community, UT Austin Interim President Jay Hartzell said the university will consider a number of metrics in deciding whether to move more classes online or close buildings on campus in the coming weeks.
Other area colleges are also reporting COVID cases in the wake of their reopening.
St. Edward's University, a private Catholic school in South Austin, reported seven positive results out of 2,173 tests conducted during the week ending Thursday.
Between July 6 and Aug. 28, Austin Community College reported eight cases among students and four among employees.
Huston-Tillotson University, a private historically Black university in East Austin, is conducting its fall semester entirely online.
A number of colleges and universities across the country—including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Notre Dame—recently shifted to online instruction after outbreaks occurred on their campuses.
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From the California coast to Scandanavia, here's where each Austin FC player is from. (Claire Partain)
Austin FC's first signee, Rodney Redes, hails from Paraguay. So does the club's first Designated Player, Cecilio Dominguez. Five other players' hometowns are in South America, while five others are from Europe or Africa. While most on the roster signed to Austin FC from other MLS teams, Austin FC players have played as far north as Finland, as far east as Israel and as far south as Argentina.
English and Spanish are the most spoken languages on the team, although Zan Kolmanic speaks Slovenian and the club is well-traveled, too: Jon Gallagher has lived in six countries, while Kekuta Manneh, the club's only true Austinite, left behind all he knew in Gambia to move to the city in high school.
The multiculturalism on the pitch goes hand-in-hand with the city of Austin itself. Over 30% of the city's population is of Hispanic or Latino descent, and Austin is a majority-minority city (meaning non-Hispanic Whites make up less than 50% of the population).
It's brought even the most unlikely groups together; while supporters of Liga MX and the English Premier League used to be on opposite sides of the bar, now they come together in green.
Jorge Chavez, a member of Austin FC fan club Austin Anthem, said that Austin FC helps unite a city full of travelers and move-ins.
"A lot people here are from all these different places, and they might not have that much in common with each other, but now they do," Chavez said.
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Austin's tech industry is hardly insulated from the post-pandemic labor shortage. Its workers stand to benefit as a result. (Joe Jungmann/CC)
"We are living in times when the employees are the king or the queen," said Angelos Angelou, founder and CEO of local consulting firm AngelouEconomics.
A talent center
Lured by the state's business-friendly climate and Austin's growing tech scene, California-based companies such as Tesla, Oracle and TikTok built factories, relocated headquarters and opened offices. Austin posted the highest tech migration rate of any city in the country between May 2020 and April 2021, according to a recent LinkedIn analysis.
With so many new resident businesses, job growth kept pace. The Austin metro ranked fourth nationally for tech job postings growth in March, according to Silicon Valley Bank's latest State of the Markets report.
Oracle relocated its headquarters to the Riverside location in Austin. (Shutterstock)
To fill these roles, local tech companies have to look beyond the city limits. Employers poach from their competitors, recruit recent graduates from area colleges and universities or look to the national labor market for talent, Angelou said.
Summer Salazar, director of employer engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, has seen a huge influx in tech sector job postings on the university's job board in recent months. "We feel that demand," she said.
An employee's market
Jaime Cabrera, 28, recently graduated from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and is looking for a policy job at a social media company. He didn't go into his job search with plans to stay in Austin but has seen various intriguing openings, citing Bumble, Lyft and TikTok. "I didn't realize how many companies are here," he said.
The tech labor market also affects employees who are not looking for a new job but instead seeking better benefits or internal policy changes from their current employer.
Lawrence Humphrey, 27, lives in North Austin and works for IBM. Shortly after the murder of George Floyd, he co-founded Tech Can Do Better, which advocates for a more equitable industry. Since then, there has been little quantitative progress in terms of more diverse hiring and other metrics. But there has been a qualitative shift. "Issues around racial equity are just far more of a priority from the perspective of the employees, so therefore it's far more of a priority for the employers," he said.
OG vs. newcomers
Although the pandemic has accelerated the growth of Austin's tech industry, the industry was already established. In the latter half of the 20th century, the city attracted big tech originators like IBM because of its enticingly low labor cost and spawned homegrown giants like Dell—trends that continue today.
The arrival of Silicon Valley tech transplants in other growing tech cities, such as Miami, has led to tension with the so-called old guard. In Austin, such competition has forced companies to compete for workers, leading to more mobility.
"When I was in the job market, my god if you changed jobs often—and often meant once every three years—you were considered a traitor," said Angelou, who headed the Austin Chamber's economic development department from 1984 through 1995, helping to recruit companies such as IBM, Apple and Samsung to town. "Now people change jobs every nine months, it appears, and that is considered a plus."
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