Austin Council's Special Called Meeting on COVID-19 (6.29.2020)

Today the Austin City Council met for a Special Called Meeting on COVID-19.

The meeting served as a forum for briefings and discussion rather than items posted for action. Austin Public Health and advisors reported on the rise of COVID-19 infections, hospitalization capacity, and future scenarios and timelines. Of note, on Sunday, June 28th, Travis County experienced its largest single-day of new COVID-19 cases, 636.

“It’s the people who provide care for those beds that is going to be the issue, because those people have to come from somewhere,” stated Austin Public Health interim Medical Director Dr. Mark Escott “So we are going to be relying on nurses, physicians, others who can be flexed into the hospitals or into the alternate care sites if we have to use them. That may mean military personnel need to be requested to help staff hospitals.”

While projection models vary, Austin officials stated the lack of social distancing and exponential infection rates could see area hospitals reaching max capacity by mid-July.

“We’ve seen two models that let us open up schools in the fall and both of them require us to be able to do orange really well, which is everybody masks, everybody socially distances,” stated Mayor Steve Adler “One scenario has us doing it right now … or we can’t do it right away and we have to psych ourselves up to actually have the discipline … in which case we have to do a red shutdown.”

Dr. Meyers, with the University of Texas at Austin, explained a stay-at-home order may be required if the weekly hospitalizations average 70 new cases a day.

At the moment, the City still cannot overrule the orders placed by the Governor, which limits any restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, such as Mayor Steve Adler’s initial stay-at-home order.

Regarding public outreach, the focus remains on the hospitalization disparity among the minority groups, particular the Hispanic community. Mayor Pro Team Delia Garza requested that increased focus remain on the Hispanic community that surpasses other communities in contraction rates.

Council is currently on summer recess (reconvening on July 23rd) .

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//The Bingham Group Team.