As cases of coronavirus surge around the state, County Judge Sam Biscoe issued an order Thursday prohibiting outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people, except as permitted under Gov. Greg Abbott’s GA-26 order. The limitation on gathering size will remain in effect until July 10. The order also notes that people should not socialize in groups greater than 10 and should endeavor to wear facial coverings when in each other’s company. Religious services, child care, municipal and county licensing services, youth camps and recreational sports programs will not have an occupancy limit. Swimming pools, water parks, museums, libraries, zoos and rodeos are not subject to this gathering ban, but must operate at 50 percent capacity. A violation of this order may result in unspecified criminal punishment or a fine of up to $1,000.

Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza, who is running against Assistant County Attorney Laurie Eiserloh in the July 14 Democratic party runoff for Travis County Attorney, has battled criticism of her lack of legal experience and her votes in favor of CodeNEXT. Now a political action committee backed by pro-neighborhood activists like David King and Fred Lewis has sent out an attack piece highlighting not only Garza’s CodeNEXT votes, but votes she and other Council members made that later turned out to be in violation of the Open Meetings Act. The group, which calls itself Austin Communities First PAC, received contributions from Mike Lavigne, Brian Rodgers, Jim Duncan and Linda Bailey, according to a February filing with the Travis County Clerk’s Office. What is most unusual about this particular attack is that Garza took a picture of the flyer and posted it on her Facebook page. Of course, she defended herself, concluding, “Things are gonna get ugly, friends, and I could use your help fighting these attacks. Please donate to my campaign. Anything helps.” Garza also won The Austin Chronicle‘s dual endorsement along with Eiserloh Thursday, which was also celebrated, safely, on Facebook.

This whisper has been corrected.

In measured good news, the city of Austin reported Thursday, “Nursing home testing shows low positivity rate for both residents and staff at facilities with no known outbreak.” Testing results from Travis County nursing homes that did not have outbreaks show low positive test rates among staff, and those rates are even lower for the homes’ residents. According to a news release from the city, “Testing results from Travis County nursing homes without ongoing Covid-19 transmission … show three new cases that were identified among residents for a positivity rate of .16 percent. At those same nursing homes, nine new cases were identified among staff members for a positivity rate of .31 percent.” The news is less good for facilities that were known to have Covid-19 outbreaks. Results from those three nursing homes show one had a 38 percent positivity rate while the other two had a positivity rate of about 11 percent for both staff and residents. The data comes after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered tests for all nursing homes in mid-May, and is the result of 5,641 tests administered at 33 facilities.

Austin Independent School District is asking families to complete a survey to help inform how students will return to school in the fall. In a summer newsletter (para Summer Vision 2020 en español, visite el sitio web del Austin ISD), the district explained that in Texas Education Agency draft plans, both in-person and remote learning would count toward funding. That, and the quickly shifting landscape created by the pandemic, means that AISD is preparing a “hybrid” learning model alongside a 100 percent at-home learning model for Aug. 18. Given the choice families have, AISD hopes that the family survey can inform plans for the new school year. The newsletter notes, “We’re looking forward to seeing our students and staff return to learning safely; however, it is clear that our school days will not look the same as years past. Social distancing guidelines may result in classrooms of six to eight students per teacher. This means not all 81,000 students will be on our 127 campuses each day and students will learn remotely when they’re not physically at school. More information on in-person learning will be communicated as the district receives guidance from TEA.” For assistance with the survey, please email survey@austinisd.org.

Cases of Covid-19 continue to climb in Travis County. Austin’s interim medical authority, Dr. Mark Escott, told the Travis County Commissioners Court Tuesday that part of the difficulty in tracking that increase is the process being employed. Austin Public Health employees must sift through faxes from testing labs and enter the data into the system before they are able to contact the person to whom the data corresponds. Dr. Escott told commissioners that sometimes the team sorts through 1,000 faxes a day. He spent most of the day Sunday personally sorting through new documents to enter them into the system so that public health staffers can contact people who have tested positive and begin contact tracing. “I am stunned to hear that the way we are getting the results of tests on infections is on fax,” said Commissioner Brigid Shea, who likened this communication method to “getting this on stone tablets that are chiseled.” Dr. Escott acknowledged that this manual form of data entry is causing a backlog and taking staff seven to 10 days to enter the results into the system. That elongated timeline, he explained, makes contact tracing difficult and increases the chance of further spread. Shea asked for a list of labs that are sending testing data via fax in order to contact them and encourage digital filing. In fact, because of HIPAA regulations and difficulty in sharing information across compliant platforms, faxes continue to be used in the health care industry long after the technology has become obsolete in other sectors.

Though City Council is technically on “summer break,” we live in interesting times, so it isn’t a huge surprise that Council is now planning to meet next week. According to a post on the City Council Message Board, Council will meet virtually on June 29 at 1 p.m. to discuss coronavirus-related topics. Though the agenda has not yet been posted, Mayor Steve Adler proposed including:

• Reports from Dr. Escott and Austin Public Health: what’s being done to deal with the rise in cases, hospital admissions, and infectivity we’re now seeing.
• Information on recent modeling and what that tells us about future scenarios and timelines
• As specifically requested by Mayor Pro Tem Garza, and to which I emphatically agree is key, our current strategies to deal with and mitigate and current and planned efforts to address the protections for and the disproportionate and increasing outbreak in vulnerable communities, especially the Black and the Latinx/Hispanic communities.
• Reports on RISE and other Covid funding, including an assessment of possible budget increases for fighting the virus itself

Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant clearly relishes the other part of his job: voter registration. The coronavirus has made it more difficult to register new voters this spring; yet Travis County has still set a new record with 828,127 registered voters, Elfant said Wednesday. He noted that the county added about 3,000 additional voters between the March 3 primary and June 15, the deadline for those who want to vote in the July 14 Democratic and Republican runoff elections. Elfant is expecting another 60,000 Travis County residents to register before the October deadline in order to vote in the November election. Right now he said his voter registration office is experiencing “a brisk business, mostly by mail.” In the past, deputy voter registrars would register people to vote by talking to them in public places, such as outside grocery stores, and going door to door in neighborhoods. Now Elfant and his deputy registrars have had to think up new ways to help people register. Currently, the deputies are checking each library that is open to make sure they have voter registration cards. In the next week or so, Elfant anticipates rolling out a text-to-register program. The last time they did that they got a lot of requests, but only about 25 percent of those who got the voter registration cards by mail actually registered to vote, he said. However, after the election they were happy to find out that 85 percent of those who did register through the text program cast ballots. Travis County residents may also fill out a voter registration application online and print it out.

Austin ISD’s Office of Equity and Cultural Proficiency & Inclusiveness is extending an invitation to community members, students, families and educators to participate in a Community Equity Summit to “share their individual and collective stories.” The summit, called “Our Voices, Our Stories,” will feature student art, musical performances and celebrations. Topics to be discussed include:

• #AISDatHome: Learning while at home
• How the district is investing in equity
• Language access
• Technology and achieving equitable outcomes

The event is scheduled for 1-5 p.m., Tuesday, June 30, via Zoom. Register on Eventbrite.

Dick Lillie, who led the city planning department through some of its most turbulent times, died Monday at the age of 89. Lillie ushered a host of land use regulations through the city adoption process that are now deemed essential to planning and preserving neighborhoods and the environment. Jim Duncan, his friend and successor as director of planning, told the Austin Monitor he met Lillie in 1961 as Lillie was leaving the department to go to graduate school. It so happened that Lillie was leaving behind a job as research analyst, and he advised Duncan that the position would be open. Duncan took the job. Lillie got his master’s degree in planning, and after a stint as planning director in Waco, Lillie returned to Austin. That was 1965; five years later, Lillie was named director of the department. Not long after that Lillie began to put together the Austin Tomorrow program, which the city still uses as a fundamental planning tool. Duncan took over as director of planning when Lillie went into private practice in 1984. Duncan said Monday that he merely continued the good work Lillie had started. Duncan, who currently serves on the Zoning and Platting Commission, said of his colleague, “Over the past 60 years I have literally worked with thousands of planners and I can say, without hesitation, that not one of them has matched Dick’s caring, competence or character. Dick Lillie personified the perfect professional planner.” The Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association has posted a slideshow tribute to Lillie highlighting some of his many contributions to the city, including pushing for adoption of ordinances regulating building in floodplains, protecting the city’s creeks and reviewing municipal utility districts.

Austin Public Health reported a record 56 new Covid-19 hospitalizations Tuesday. According to the dashboard that monitors key indicators in our five-county region, 236 people are now hospitalized with the virus. The increase in new hospital admissions brings the rolling seven-day average to 39.3. Austin entered Stage 4 when that average rose past 20 on June 14, just over a week ago. The number of new cases reported Tuesday was 257. In response to the sharp increase in Covid-19 cases that Austin/Travis County has seen this past week, businesses in Austin must now require the use of masks. Under Stage 4, people over the age of 65 and those with underlying health conditions should avoid gatherings of more than two people, and everyone should avoid gatherings of more than 10 people.

For many of us, walking from the kitchen to the living room is all the commuting we’ve done over the past few months. Meanwhile, essential workers have been braving the highways throughout the pandemic, while other workers have been furloughed and still others are only now preparing to reenter the commute as some workplaces reopen. No matter which category you fall into, chances are you have a variety of thoughts about your commute during the pandemic. The Association for Commuter Transportation would like to know more about those thoughts. The advocacy group is conducting a nationwide survey “to help employers, transportation providers and policymakers plan for how best to ensure your commute to work is safe and reliable no matter the mode you choose.” Participants who share their email addresses – and who take the survey by June 26 – will receive a summary of the survey results and will be entered into a drawing for one of five $100 Amazon gift cards, as an enticement. Take ACT’s Covid-19’s Impacts on Commuting survey.

Given the sharp increase in Covid-19 cases seen in Austin this past week, Mayor Steve Adler has once again updated orders intended to slow the spread of the virus in the city. The new orders, which are effective as of 11:59 p.m. on June 22 through Aug. 15, are embedded in their entirety below. Notably, the orders ask that “social gatherings be avoided or minimized” with groups of more than 10 individuals (not of the same residence) prohibited. In addition, face coverings or masks are required under most circumstances, and Austin businesses now must require employees and patrons to wear face coverings or face a fine of up to $1,000.

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