Austin Officials Offer Labor Day Safety Tips Amid COVID-19
AUSTIN, TX — With Labor Day weekend upon us, Austin Public Health is reminding everyone
AUSTIN, TX — With Labor Day weekend upon us, Austin Public Health is reminding everyone to avoid large crowds and continue to wear face coverings, practice social distancing and proper hygiene to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.
Within a few weeks following the Memorial Day holiday, Austin-Travis County saw a surge in new cases and hospitalizations due to social gatherings and re-opened businesses, officials wrote in an advisory. It then took the community nearly two months to see a substantial decline in the 7-day moving average of new cases and hospital admissions.
“As of Sept. 3, the current 7-day moving average of new cases in Austin-Travis County is 72, a daily case count as low as we have seen since early June,” health district officials wrote. And yet while the community stepped up to the challenge and made huge strides to reduce the spread of COVID-19 over the past several weeks, “…now is not the time to let our guard down,” officials wrote.
Related story: City of Austin Labor Day 2020 Closures
“Labor Day weekend is not the time to crowd bars, to have barbecues and to gather with family,” Dr. Mark Escott, Interim Austin-Travis County Health Authority, said in a prepared statement. “Now is the time to stay the course because if we change our behaviors, three weeks from now we could be back where we were in June and July with increased cases and uncontrollable spread.”
The current positivity rate for Austin-Travis County is 6.2 percent, according to the latest available data. Austin Public Health has indicated that the positivity rate should be below 5 percent across all racial and ethnic groups in Austin-Travis County to continue the process of re-opening businesses.
“Everyone must follow all of the preventative actions we’ve done thus far,” Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden said in a prepared statement. “Be the example that you want others to see. Our hope is that this call to action will make everyone think about what they can do as an individual to make our community a safer place. We want to ensure that we have a safe environment when our students go back to school so that we can provide our children with the education they need in a healthy and safe way.”
Labor Day Closures
Due to the Labor Day holiday, all APH COVID-19 test sites, as well as the APH Nurse Hotline (512-972-5560), will be closed on Monday, Sept. 7. The holiday closure includes in-home testing, neighborhood testing sites and the Pflugerville Pfield walk-up testing site, officials said. Individuals who need a COVID-19 test can still complete the online assessment via the City of Austin website to schedule an appointment for another day during the week.
For COVID-19 information and updates, visit the COVID-19 Information portion of the municipal website.
This article originally appeared on the Austin Patch