The City of Austin has issued an order for residents to stay at home except to do essential activities to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The order requires all nonessential businesses to have employees work from home and further restricts other gatherings. Essential businesses, like grocery stores and pharmacies, can remain open.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler told KUT on Monday that such an order was necessary to prevent hospitals from getting overtaxed and said residents would need to take it seriously.
“It takes really the collective action, all of us pulling together, all of us taking this seriously,” he said. “But if we do that, then we should be able to fare better.”
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Echoing the mayor, Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt said the community had a “very short window to really affect COVID-19’s expansion.”
On Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott said he would not mandate a shelter-in-place order for the state, though he said local officials could issue them if they choose to do so. He said he wanted to first gauge the effectiveness of his order limiting restaurant service and temporarily closing schools, bars and gyms.
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Austin-Travis County currently has 86 reported cases of COVID-19.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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