Motel leased for COVID isolation
The City of Austin has approved a $910,000 lease for a motel in Northwest Austin, but the city says it will only be used for COVID-19 isolation. The city’s Alex Gale explains there are two kinds of motel conversions they are operating. The first are protective shelters of which they have five.
“Which are helping the homeless population being able to isolate and not spread the disease among those congregate living situations that they are in,” Gale says.
The latest leased motel would be reserved for folks with COVID-19 symptoms or those who have been in contact with a confirmed case. Gale says they have one of those, and it has 290 beds. However, they find that much of the space isn’t needed so they’re considering this a chance to downsize
COVID-19 update
Travis County hospitalizations have climbed a 163 over the past day. That’s an increase of eight. The county also tacked on another hefty number of new active cases, bringing that total up to 1,585. Overall 33,960 cases have been found, resulting in a total of 31,910 recoveries.
Hospitalizations may be rising in Travis County, but that number is still a far cry from the near 500 COVID patients hospitalized day after day over the summer. Dr. Rob Watson, with Baylor Scott and White, tells KVUE the whole region really is positioned much more comfortably now than it was months ago.
“Again, there’s still always some element of the unknown. We don’t know how big this wave is gonna be. But, we’re in a much, much better position than we were when this initially started,” says Watson.
He says they will be watching closely what the numbers might look like in January as people gather for the holidays.
There are five more active cases of COVID in Williamson County today than the same point yesterday. The county says 363 cases are active, 42 of those requiring hospitalization. 10,772 cases are confirmed, and the overwhelming majority 10,251 of those have resulted in a recovery.
Williamson County has been moved up to the orange phase on its COVID risk chart now. As the cases are rising, a lot of people are growing very concerned that another stay-at-home order may not be far away. County Judge Bill Gravell says he has no plan to issue that order. He says he does have to have faith in the citizens of the county to be responsible, and he says only an order from Governor Greg Abbott will close Williamson County back down.
Kalahari Resort
After five years of build up, the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock is now officially the city’s second largest employer.It happened on day one of the resort’s operations as the ribbon cutting was yesterday. Jason Ball with the Chamber of Commerce tells CBS Austin the expectation is Kalahari will be huge for the local economy.
“Anytime you have 1000 new jobs get created in the community, that’s a huge step forward,” says Ball.
The resort is open in the midst of a global pandemic, and that’s posing a lot of challenges. Kalahari is limiting room capacity right now to 50% and is also keeping water park operations to a minimum.
Round Rock students failing classes
Some concerning trends are being seen in the Round Rock school district. Data from the first nine week grading period shows a significantly higher number of students failing classes than was seen last year. 27% of high schoolers are failing at least one class and on-campus learners appear to be struggling much more than virtual learners. 23% of middle schoolers were also failing at least one of their courses.
Virtual or on-campus learning
The Texas State Teachers Association has not been in favor with on campus learning since the pandemic took root. Now that more districts are reporting upticks in cases, spokesman Clay Robison says state leaders need to step in and allow funding to continue for 100% virtual learning for the rest of the year.
“A number of school districts, many of them are in rural areas, have dropped virtual learning as an option, and the doctors believe that’s a mistake, and we believe that’s a mistake,” Robison says.
That’s the only way to ensure the safety of students and staff. Several schools in the Austin area have reverted to virtual learning until after Thanksgiving.
Foster care system in Texas
The state’s $4.6 billion budget shortfall heading in the state legislative session has child advocacy groups fearing it could be a rough session for the state’s already broken foster care system.
“With a session that’s a bit of an unfriendly budget ahead of us. We’re really trying to focus in on what will have the most impact,” says Carrie Judice with the child advocacy group Tex for Tex is hoping lawmakers tap into matching federal dollars from the Family First Act to help prevent kids from falling into the state’s overburdened foster care system in the first place.
“Our focus should be upstream on preventing child abuse and neglect altogether. Providing families with the resources they need to remain together in an efficient and effective way and preventing removals,” she says.
The federal government would match 50% of what the state puts up.
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