COVID-19 update

After consecutive days of increases, Travis County’s number of COVID hospitalizations has fallen a bit today. They’re at 182, that’s five less than a day ago. There are also fewer active cases than there were this time yesterday, with 1,975 reported. Overall, 34,769 cases have been found, resulting in 32,328 recoveries.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler is warning that we may be just days away from moving into more strict COVID regulations.

“And then, if that doesn’t work a week or two later, not very far off, we could be looking at taking more drastic action, which none of us want to take. I don’t know what that more drastic action would look like. We want to keep our schools open. We want to keep open businesses as much as we can,” says Adler.

If you really want businesses to stay open, he’s demanding that you wear a mask and stay safe.

Similar to Travis County, Williamson County is also reporting fewer active COVID cases over the past 24 hours. Right now, 340 are active; that’s down by 23. 43 of those cases involve hospitalization. That’s an increase of only one. A total of 11,016 cases have been found and 10,518 of those people have recovered from the virus.

Austin High School might reopen

The Austin School board says Austin High School might reopen this week. That follows about 250 students and teachers getting tested at the school’s campus on Monday, with only four testing positive. Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde is still cautiously optimistic. 

“Given what I know right now, I would not be leaning towards closing Thursday and Friday. I would reopen Thursday and Friday, but we still have two more days,” Elizalde says. 

She’ll look into the data again when it’s done tomorrow, before making any final decision.

This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:

https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-11-17-20