COVID-19 vaccine update
Austin area health officials set to begin administering vaccines for COVID-19 either today or tomorrow. And while it’s been well documented, healthcare workers will be the first to get it. Dr. Diana Fite with the Texas Medical Association says the second round will include a wide range of industries.
“The police officers, the teachers, the people working grocery stores. There are so many people that need to be vaccinated,” says Fite.
She says support for the vaccine has been increasing as more people are learning about the process. She also says if there were any significant side effects, they likely would have been discovered by now.
COVID-19 update
295 people are currently hospitalized for COVID-19 in Travis County this morning. That’s up by more than two dozen since Friday morning as we’re heading into the weekend. Of the 42,441 confirmed cases, 3,416 of those are active right now. 38,520 of those are people who have made a recovery.
In Williamson County, there has been a slight rise in active cases of COVID this morning compared to Friday before the weekend. There are 73 people hospitalized. That’s actually down by three. Overall, 14,137 people have made a recovery out of the 15,462 cases confirmed since March.
City curfew
City leaders are still considering a curfew for Austin. Austin’s Mayor Steve Adler says this is something that they’re looking at if the city does move into Stage 5 on the COVID risk chart, adding that no final decision has been made on that possibility just yet.
“Any rule we have has to be something that the community wants to do enough to expect it of themselves and to expect it of one another, to expect people to engage in those behaviors because that’s the best way to protect their family,” says Adler.
Local health leaders predict the city will enter Stage 5 this week if infection in hospitalization rates go unchanged.
Live events industry
The live events industry has really suffered mightily this year. A recent report from the concert trade publication Pollstar estimates at least $30 billion in lost revenue across the nation. As Cody Cowan with the Red River Cultural District tells Fox 7 Austin has certainly seen its share of those losses.
“The Red River Cultural District, like downtown and much of Austin, will never look the same after this,” Cowan says.
About 30% of venues around Red River are now gone for good, and Cowan thinks it’s highly likely Austin will not return as a tourism destination for at least a year or more.
Shorter leases for renters
With the pandemic in mind, more Austin area renters of demanding and getting shorter term leases. Taking a look at the fourth quarter, Rob Warnock with Apartment List says it could be people just testing out the local market.
“In Austin, it was about 11% at the beginning of this year. So from 11% to 16%, we’re looking at like about a 50% growth in just the volume of people that are now searching for these shorter leases,” Warnock says.
There’s still a lot of uncertainty and that six month leases are giving people much more flexibility to account for that.
Back rent
Austin’s recent extension of the eviction moratorium has come as welcome news for tenants, but not necessarily for landlords. Property owner Sami Joseph tells CBS Austin he does understand the need for compassion.
“But at the same time, banks still need to operate and you know they’re not waving payment,” Joseph says.
A lot of landlords find themselves falling quickly into the red due to a lack of rent payments combined with spiking property taxes and a slow rent rental market. Now, the Austin City Council won’t be meeting again until late next month. But at that time, it is expected that the council will address the issue of back rent.
Fire at homeless camp
Another fire at a homeless camp causes problems for the Austin Fire Department. Officials say a fire tore through a camp near some railroad tracks right next to the ACC Northridge Campus and an apartment complex. It forced those tracks to be closed down for hours. The camp is said to be completely destroyed. The fire is just the latest in a string of blazes at homeless camps since late last year, and at the end of this year as well.
Two hotly contested Austin City Council runoffs will be decided tomorrow. Those are District 6 and 10 based on candidate filings. There’s been some big money spent. More than $400,000 has been raised among the incumbents and the challengers combined.
Tech coming to Texas
Oracle’s announcement that it’s moving its headquarters from California to Austin has created a lot of buzz. Governor Greg Abbott tells CNBC the number of major companies choosing to move to Texas should speak volumes about the business friendly environment
“You talked about Tesla. Remember, we just had the announcement about Hewlett Packard enterprise. We also just had the announcement last month about the Fortune 500 company CBRE moving its headquarters to Texas,” says Abbott.
California’s Bay Area Council has released a statement expressing great concern over the future of that state’s economy as more and more businesses pack up and leave.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-12-14-20
