Austin hits hospitalization threshold for Stage 4 guidelines; still in Stage 5

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Austin-Travis County hit the hospital admission threshold for Stage 4 COVID-19 risk-based guidelines Thursday but health leaders say the area will remain in Stage 5 for now.

"As we make decisions on adjusting from one stage to another we take into consideration many parameters," Dr. Desmar Walkes, the local health authority, said. "The overall goal is for us to look at the situation in its entirety."

Austin-Travis County leaders use several metrics in their key indicators for staging dashboard, including community transmission rate and positivity rate in addition to the 7-day moving average of hospital admissions. All of those metrics have dropped since we hit our peak in late January.

The 7-day moving average of hospital admissions was more than double what it is now at the peak of the omicron surge. On Jan. 19, that metric was at 128.9.  That 7-day moving average of hospital admissions dropped to 45 Thursday, the threshold for Stage 4 is 50.

While case numbers and hospitalizations have gone down drastically over the last few weeks, COVID-19 deaths have gone up at the tail end of the omicron surge, something health leaders say has happened as a product of the progression of this disease.

"There were 66 people who died from COVID in the last two weeks," Janet Pichette, APH's chief epidemiologist, said. "Those individuals have families that are grieving as a result of COVID so the risk is not going away and people need to continue to be vigilant."

Health leaders say if the community continues to wear masks in public spaces, get vaccinated and use other COVID-19 mitigation practices we could end up in less restrictive stages in the next few weeks.

"The trend that we're seeing right now is that we could be in Stage 4 possibly in the next 10 days or so," Walkes said.

COVID-19 risk-based guidelines for Austin-Travis County, published Dec. 20, 2021 (Courtesy Austin Public Health)
COVID-19 risk-based guidelines for Austin-Travis County, published Dec. 20, 2021 (Courtesy Austin Public Health)

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