City Council election results
Come next month, the Austin City Council will have a brand new face representing Northwest Austin. With all the votes tallied up for the Austin City Council race, challenger Mackenzie Kelly upset incumbent Jimmy Flannigan by 9% points in the runoff election with more than 54% of the vote. In District 10, it was an even tighter race, with incumbent Alison Alter beating out her challenger, Jennifer Virden by three points, keeping her council seat with 51% of the vote.
COVID-19 update
Travis County’s number of hospital patients actually fell a bit over the past day from 301 yesterday morning down to 297 this morning. Ventilator usage and ICU bed space really haven’t spiked that much this week. 3,740 cases are active right now, out of the 43,469 confirmed overall, and 39,222 people have recovered,
Williamson County has seen some ebb and flow of its COVID numbers, and today active cases have swung back upward after falling earlier this week. Right now, 987 cases are active, and 85 people are hospitalized. That’s actually down by one from a day ago. 16,322 cases have been found since March, resulting in 15,153 recoveries.
As Austin Public Health continues to warn that Travis County is dangerously close to Stage 5 COVID restrictions, the latest numbers are offering local leaders some shreds of hope now. The seven day rolling average of 50 new hospitalizations per day would put us into Stage 5. But Mayor Steve Adler points out, that average has stopped climbing for the moment
“Now dropped the seven day moving average from 47 yesterday down to 46 today. You know it wouldn’t take very many days of 50 to push this up, but this is a good sign,” says Adler.
But on the other hand, he says he’s really not sure exactly how to interpret all this data since yesterday also saw 613 brand new cases, which is the most in any single day since back in July.
Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty says the county’s COVID situation is really at a boiling point and people need to start raining in their actions.
“You know, we are heading into a period where you are not going to believe what is gonna happen in this community,” says Daugherty.
Austin Travis County health officials say the area is close to being in a situation where hospitals might have to turn COVID patients away if the rate of infection and hospitalizations don’t change.
Leeway for bars during COVID
Travis County Health Authority Doctor Mark Escott agrees with White House officials that Texas could be doing a better job in reining in the pandemic. He says the state has allowed counties too much leeway on what bars can and can’t do.
“But there are huge holes in that protection. We have more than 200 bars that are right now pretending to be restaurants. They’re not restaurants, people aren’t seated, they’re operating as bars and we have little ability to close those establishments based upon the rules that we have in place right now,” Escott says.
There’s also a pretty big problem with school athletics and other extracurricular activities.
Day 3 of COVID vaccines
Day three of COVID vaccinations here in Texas gets underway today as Austin hospitals are expected to begin providing doses despite a lot of speculation about a time frame for the general public. Dr. John Carlo, with the Texas COVID-19 task force, says it’s really anybody’s guess when vaccines will be available to everybody.
“The big question is what we can expect in 2021 in terms of the number of vaccines that will arrive in Texas and how quickly they’ll get here,” Carlo says.
The immediate goal is getting the 1.4 million doses spread out across the state before the end of this year.
Teachers to get vaccine
Teachers will be included in that second round of vaccines, although each district will have to prioritize which faculty and staff would actually get it first. But some groups, like the Association of Texas Professional Educators, want to see teachers get vaccines sooner rather than later.
“Access to the vaccine is a critical step in allowing schools to resume those normal operations,” spokesman Mark Wiggins says.
Getting shots to teachers as soon as possible will help kids perform better in classroom settings and help parents get back to some kind of normalcy and their own schedules.
Margin Walker shuts down
The largest independent concert promoter in Texas is having to call it quits because of the ongoing shutdowns. Margin Walker says even with staff cuts, loans and grants, there’s just no way to continue operations. And so, as of this week, the company will become no more. The company has been responsible for thousands of shows across Texas, including many right here in Austin since 2016.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-12-16-20
