Photo by Roschetzky Photography
Austin’s Mayor Steve Adler says communities of color are expressing their lack of confidence following a weekend officer involved shooting. APD Chief Brian Manley says officers responded in force Friday evening to a call involving two people in a car doing drugs and one brandishing a gun.
“This incident may be linked to other incidents of burglary.” Manley says, “that is still under investigation, but that is also why the officers waited to have additional personnel on scene to respond.”
The standoff ended with a shooting, and the suspect, 42 year old Mike Ramos, died at the hospital. Adler says the Office of Police Oversight needs to assess the shooting and share their findings with the community.
This afternoon Governor Greg Abbott will lay out more of his plan to get the state back to work. Abbott says it will not be a one size fits all approach and it will take an extreme amount of caution to prevent another major outbreak.
“What we have shown and what we believe we will be able to continue to show is that we are able to increase economic activity; increase the ability of people to go about with more normalization of their lives,” says Abbot.
He’s expected to speak at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon and has already indicated he may be looking to take the next step as early as next week. His plan will be a phased-in approach based on specific industries.
As Governor Abbott prepares to get more businesses open, a new U.T. Texas Tribune Poll finds public opinion on when that should happen remains pretty mixed. Director of the U. T politics project Jim Henson says 9% believe we’re already at that point. 21% said within a few weeks, 41% said within a few months. 17% said in the next year and 9% said more than a year. The poll also finds about 66% agree with Abbott’s decision to suspend normal business operations, and more than 75% agree with the statewide stay-at-home order.
39 people have died from coronavirus in Travis County. 66 remain hospitalized as of this morning. 398 of the 1,412 overall cases, have recovered from the virus. A map from Austin Public Health shows southeast and southwest Austin have the highest pockets of cases in the city.
Round Rock nursing homes are struggling with COVID-19. The Williamson County Cities and Health District began investigating one facility late last week. 46 of the 233 people tested have come back positive.
Health District Executive Director Derrick Neal tells CBS Austin sending them elsewhere for isolation is not an option right now. One staff member is also infected but the county is not giving the specific location.
Williams County Judge Bill Gravell says there’s been an increase in new COVID-19 cases of 78% in the past week and 1/2 due to the high number of new nursing home cases. There are 262 cases in the county, seven are hospitalized, and five have died. The good news is 36 patients have now recovered from the virus.
A new coronavirus test site will open up this week in Williamson County. It’s open to the public and doesn’t require a doctor referral. It will be given at no charge but only to people who are experiencing symptoms. An online assessment will go live today on the counties website and the first test will be done on Thursday between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.
No new cases of coronavirus reported in Hays County. In more than 24 hours. 71 of the 149 total cases have made recoveries but 14 people remain hospitalized. Hays counties only death, an elderly Buda woman, occurred back on April 13th.
COVID-19 vaccinations are still very likely more than a year away but trials continue across the nation and world. Dr. Peter Hotez with Baylor College of Medicine is working on one of those vaccines and says they’re trying to balance new and old technology.
“Some old fashioned technologies like ours, are the same technology used to make the recombinant hepatitis B vaccination that’s used all over the world,” says Hotez.
Only about one in 10 trials actually moves on to the next phase of testing. He thinks multiple vaccinations will ultimately be produced, some geared toward the elderly and some geared toward the young.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-4-27-20
