Coronavirus: Travis County Reports 636 New Cases

TRAVIS COUNTY, TX — The number of cases of the coronavirus in Travis County grew by 636 on Sunday from the previous day, raising the historical count to 8,461. The historical fatality count remained unchanged at 117.

According to a statistical dashboard maintained by Austin Public Health, there have been 351 people hospitalized for the respiratory illness, including 114 at intensive care units and 60 placed on ventilators.

The 636-patient increase reported Sunday comes one day after Austin Public Health reported 476 new cases over the two-day prior period. Another person previously was reported to have succumbed to the illness for which there is no vaccine.

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The uptick in illness throughout Travis County comes amid record-breaking rates of illness across Texas. Given such increases, officials at the city, county and state levels have taken measures to help stem the tide of illness:

• Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday ordered all bars to close, along with tubing and rafting operations.
• Austin and Travis County officials issued orders banning outdoor crowds of more than 100 people.
• On Thursday, Abbott also put a pause on continued reopening of the economy, which amounts to holding off on allowing businesses catering to the public to operate at full capacity since most businesses had already been allowed to reopen per his earlier orders.
• Also on Thursday, Abbott banned all elective surgeries and procedures from taking place to make hospital space available for a potential influx of newly diagnosed coronavirus patients.

"We have a window now, a very small window, maybe seven days — maybe two weeks — to have people really change behaviors," Austin Mayor Steve Adler said over the weekend. "To wear masks, to social distance so we can disrupt and at least slow the rate of our current trajectory."
The mayor offered guidance to residents wanting to help curb the illness scourge:

• Stay home, especially if you think there's even a chance you could be infected;
• Wear your mask if you have to go out;
• Keep at least six feet of distance from other people;
• Do not gather in groups (outside those in your household); and,
• Call your friends and family in our city and ask them to do the same. Then ask them to call their friends and family to practice these behaviors.

Related stories:

• Coronavirus: Texas Gets Nearly 6K New Cases In A Single Day
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• Coronavirus: Texas Illness Count Grows By 5,707, 28 New Deaths
• Coronavirus: Texas Governor Orders All Bars To Close
• Coronavirus: Texas Bans Elective Surgeries Amid Illness Spikes
• Coronavirus: Texas Halts Economy Reopening Amid Growing Illness
• Coronavirus: Texas Mayors Given Greater Authority On Crowd Sizes

"Each of our individual choices will add up to be our collective community response and will determine the lives lost and lives lived in our community," Adler said. "And whether or not we can sustain the opening of the economy."