Parents should keep their children at home if they are able to, the district said.
High positivity rates for COVID-19 in schools in Austin, Texas, have local health officials on hand.
In Travis County, where Austin is located, the COVID-19 test positivity rate is 20.2% in high schools, 27.1% in middle schools, 19.8% in elementary schools and 10% in preschools.
All rates are much higher than recommended by the World Health Organization, which is to obtain positivity test thresholds of less than 5% for 14 days.
Part of the problem may be that schools in the area are almost full. “Some of our superintendents reported that some individual schools occupy between 70% and 90% of employment,” Drs. Mark Escott, interim medical director and health authority at Austin Public Health.
“This is a recipe for disaster. It’s a recipe for outbreaks in our schools,” Escott said.
Escott and the Austin Independent School District are asking parents to keep their children at home if they are able, according to ABC News affiliate Austin KVUE.
“And in addition to the impact on the health of our children, our teachers and school staff, so is the continuity of education,” Escott said. “We will quickly see that we will run out of teachers to offer face-to-face education.”
At the same time, Austin is facing increasing hospitalizations and declining ICU space.
This week, the state opened the Austin Convention Center as a field hospital for less severe COVID-19 patients in need of lower levels of care.
The site, which will have 25 beds, can be expanded to include more if needed, and aims to “reduce the burden on local hospitals and help ensure that jeans diagnosed with COVID-19 receive the care they need.” , Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.
Texas surpassed 2 million COVID-19 infections this week, making it the only non-California state to reach that milestone, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. There have been 31,277 deaths from the virus in the state since the outbreak began.
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