The Delta variant of COVID-19 is now responsible for the lion's share of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in Travis County, and that has local leaders pushing harder to get more people vaccinated.
Our local health authority says hospitalizations in Travis County are trending downward and if that continues we could drop to Stage 4 COVID-19 risk in late September or early October. But there's a catch. Dr. Desmar Walkes explains, “The real crux and thing that could stop this progression downward is increases in our school cases and increasing cases that require hospitalizations, particularly the unvaccinated individuals."
And that continues to be a sore spot for some. Travis County Precinct 3 Commissioner Brigid Shea says, “I just feel like we need to send a stronger message that the people who are unvaccinated are literally prolonging this pandemic."
The problem is compounded when residents of neighboring counties with lower vaccination rates than Travis County end up in Austin area hospitals. Dr. Walkes adds, “It's going to be important for us to look to our neighbors and collaborate with them and get their populations vaccinated as well because we're all in this together."
So, yes, hospitalizations are trending in the right direction, but Delta will determine how long they're in for. Austin Mayor Steve Adler notes, “Now it looks like the admission numbers are going down but the ICU and ventilator numbers are staying relatively plateaued." And Dr. Walkes answers, “We will continue to see the number of people in ICUs on ventilators for some months now. It's going to take about 2 to 3 months to clear out our ICUs."
Meanwhile, Austin Public Health is gearing up to distribute booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. They say they'll be ready by September 20th if that's what the feds finally okay.