Parents should keep their children at home if they can, the district said.
The very high positivity rates for COVID-19 in schools in Austin, Texas, worry local health officials.
In Travis County, where Austin is located, the positivity rate for the COVID-19 test is 20.2% in high schools, 27.1% in high schools, 19.8% in high schools and 10% in preschools.
All rates are much higher than the recommendations of the World Health Organization, that is, to obtain positivity test thresholds below 5% for 14 days.
Part of the problem may be that schools in the region are almost full. “Some of our superintendents have reported that some individual schools have between 70% and 90% occupancy,” said Dr. Mark Escott, acting medical director and health authority at Austin Public Health.
“This is a recipe for disaster. It is a recipe for outbreaks in our schools,” said Escott.
Escott and the Austin Independent School District are asking parents to keep their children at home if they can, according to ABC News Austin affiliate KVUE.
“And in addition to the impact on the health of our children, on our teachers and school staff, it is also the continuity of education,” said Escott. “We will quickly see that we will run out of teachers to offer face-to-face education.”
At the same time, Austin is battling increased hospitalizations and reduced ICU space.
This week, the state opened the Austin Convention Center as a field hospital for less-severe COVID-19 patients who need lower levels of care.
The 25-bed facility can be expanded to include more beds if needed and aims to “reduce the burden on local hospitals and help ensure that Texans diagnosed with COVID-19 receive the care they need “, Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement.
Texas surpassed 2 million COVID-19 infections this week, making it the only state besides California to reach that milestone, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Since the outbreak began, 31,277 deaths from the virus have occurred in the state.
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