COVID in Austin Update (June 17)

No new orders… yet. Update: Businesses are required to have a mask-requiring plan in place by June 23rd in Austin.

After Governor Abbott’s caving by allowing the Bexar County orders, Austin’s Mayor Adler said that we’ll be under similar orders soon. Don’t wait for a business to require it. Just wear a mask now.

The Governor has now given us a path and we will act consistent with his statement. Wearing masks is important — to our health and to opening up the economy. We will be entering an order directing businesses to come up with a simple safety plan over the next several days. 1/2

— Mayor Adler (@MayorAdler) June 17, 2020

Mayor Adler was kind by saying “The Governor has now given us a path”. He didn’t, but I digress. The Governor will have trouble from the Right with his allowance.

Abbott’s words make sense coming from the governor of California, not Texas.

ENOUGH!

We don’t need a king in the governor’s mansion or in city hall. Let Texans decide. No more parenting from Austin. #txlege https://t.co/VDwpeWGwTf

— Matt Schaefer (@RepMattSchaefer) June 17, 2020

That’s a political issue and, all in all, not what I’m worried about. Just a bit of popcorn fodder 🍿.

We’re not looking good, friends. On the State level, we had an astronomical increase of 4,098 yesterday, but state officials were big to point out that there were only 2,622 new cases and 1,476 additional cases that were previously diagnosed in prison inmates that had not be added to the rolls.

Either way, 2,622 would have been a single-day record for Texas. Until today.

Texas added 3,129 new cases today making it the single highest new count day, granting the officials clarification about yesterday’s number.

For hospitalizations, same thing. We’re at 2,793 in Texas, a new all-time high. After yesterday’s all-time high of 2518. After the day before that’s all-time high of 2326. You get the point.

Before getting to today’s Austin numbers, the Policy Lab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has been doing excellent work with forecasting COVID-19. It’s only one forecast, sure, so usual disclaimers apply, but they break things down county-by-county.

For Travis County:

It takes them a little bit of time to crunch numbers, so this doesn’t include the last few days. The only good news here is we don’t look as bad as Harris County (Houston).

So, today’s Austin numbers.

The good news is we only had 21 new hospitalizations, which slightly lowers the 7-day average. Still over 24 and we’re going to remain over 20 for the foreseeable future.

The bad. New records in most categories. We exploded to 220 new cases. Hospitalizations up to 176. ICU patients up to 63. All new highs.

Nothing more I can say besides wear a mask. Stay home.