Austin-Travis County still in Stage 5 risk-based guidelines for now - KXAN.com

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Alissa Lawson hasn’t spoken to her friend, Amy Miller, in weeks.

The next day she didn’t feel well and tested positive for COVID,” said Lawson, her friend of 11 years.

“I would hate to think how this would have affected her if she wasn’t vaccinated — I don’t think she’d be here right now, if she wasn’t vaccinated,” Lawson said.

That’s part of the reason why local health leaders said Friday they’re not moving the area to a less restrictive tier of COVID-19 guidelines just yet — even though Austin-Travis County has been within the threshold of Stage 4 risk-based guidelines for three days now.

Walkes said they’re waiting to see a sustained downward trend for hospitalizations before moving from Stage 5 to Stage 4.

Anything below 50 drops the risk level into the Stage 4 threshold, but the health authority points out they also evaluate other data points when deciding to move between stages, including the positivity rate, the doubling time of new cases and the number of patients on a ventilator.

“I think that some people are starting to let their guards down, thinking, you know, COVID’s kind of over, and it’s definitely not,” Lawson said.

Health leaders Friday praised the community for reaching that vaccination benchmark but said there is still more work to do.

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