When the Austin area will be able to further reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic will depend on a seven-day moving average of hospitalizations, Austin-Travis County Health Authority Mark Escott said Thursday.
Austin Public Health two weeks ago introduced a five-stage chart that details what public activities people with high or low risk of contracting the coronavirus can do, based on how rampant the virus is in the area.
Since then, officials have worked to set up indicators that will determine when residents can move about more freely or become more restricted.
Austin remains in Stage 3, which allows low-risk people to conduct nonessential travel. With the new indicators, Stage 3 means the Austin area is seeing a seven-day moving average of five to 19 new hospitalizations.
Escott said the area has been oscillating between eight and 10 hospitalizations since the end of March.
To get out of Stage 3 and into the less restrictive Stage 2, average hospitalizations would have to drop to less than five. The recommended thresholds for moving into a new stage use the average number of hospital admissions in Austin’s five-county metro area of Travis, Hays, Williamson, Bastrop and Caldwell counties.
Officials said residents must continue practicing social distancing, wearing a face mask in public and having good personal hygiene to get closer to moving into a less restrictive stage.
Higher-risk people, such as those with underlying health problems, during Stage 3 should continue to comply with the city’s stay-at-home rules.
Moving in and out of stages also depends on the number of cases in Travis County. This week, the county surpassed 3,000 known cases of coronavirus and was nearing 100 deaths.
“If we dip over 20 (hospitalizations) and a week before that we saw a sudden and marked increase in cases, that would give us the realization that more hospitalizations are likely coming,” Escott explained. “If the new cases have been relatively plateaued and we see it dip into that 20 zone, it may give us a different indicator.”
A new online graphic is being added to the city’s main COVID-19 dashboard so residents can check Austin’s current stage.
The new indicators come after a weekend when four parks had to be shut down twice after hitting capacity, and bars reopened for the first time in weeks.
Mayor Steve Adler tweeted a video showing Buford’s, a Sixth Street bar, packed with people and a video of Plaza De Toros R3, a dance club south of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
Adler on Thursday said the city’s stay home-work safe order, which ends Saturday, makes it mandatory to practice social distancing and to wear face masks in public. He said Gov. Greg Abbott has taken away the city’s ability to enforce wearing face masks through fines or jail time.
“So the only penalty we can now bring for failure to wear a face covering, the only real penalty is that more people are going to get sick and some of them will die,” he said.
The city is still able to fine people for not social distancing, Adler said, and code enforcement officials were in clubs over the weekend. Adler hoped the images of packed bars were a one-time thing as establishments navigate capacity and social distancing rules.
“There are not enough sheriff’s deputies or police officers to enforce this. This has got to be something that we do to help protect one another, to help keep one another, and if not our grandparents than somebody else’s grandparents, from needlessly passing away,” Adler said.
In response to a question about an Elgin bar that is not allowing masked patrons inside, Escott said people shouldn’t go to such places.
“That is completely irresponsible, and I’ll tell you, if you’re unhappy with it, the best way to manage that is to not go to that business,” Escott said.
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