the williamson county sun, september 29, 2021 icu
TRANSCRIPT
The Williamson County Sun, September 29, 2021 7
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By CHRISTOPHER DE LOS SANTOS
The number of ICU beds avail-able in the area rose to double dig-its on Sunday – 17 – for the first time this month.
The area’s number of ICU beds available had been less than 10 since September 1 due to the num-ber of Covid-19 patients needing ICU treatment.
The Williamson County and Cities Health District continues to assess the county in “red phase,” indicating “uncontrolled commu-nity spread.”
Other Covid indicators in the county have stagnated over the past week, according to data reported by the health district. Some indicators improved slight-ly, while others got slightly worse.
Hospital resourcesThe percentage of hospital re-
sources devoted to Covid patients in Williamson and surrounding counties improved, dropping to 9.7 percent Sunday from around 11 percent Thursday. This was
the first time this indicator had dropped below 10 percent since September 1.
The percentage of hospital re-
sources devoted to Covid patients is not reported by individual hos-pitals in Williamson County. Nor is the county percentage reported
separately from Trauma Service Area O, which includes William-son and surrounding counties.
Positive test rateThe rolling seven-day average
positive test rate rose, increasing to 11 percent Sunday from 9.4 per-cent Thursday.
This rolling average has hov-ered between 12 percent and 9.4 percent since September 14.
Sunday’s rate was around two-thirds of its highest-ever peak of 18.7 percent on September 2. How-ever, it is still about five to 11 times higher than where the county was in June, when the rate remained between 1 and 2 percent the ma-jority of the month.
New infection rateThe rate of new infections in
the county reached 41.2 per 100,000 population Sunday.
This is around half of its record high rate of 80.3 on September 1, and about 39 points higher than rates seen throughout June. Also, the rate of new infections in the
county has hovered between 40 and 42 since September 21.
New people infected with the virus averaged 241 per day over the last week. This is down from an average of 270 per day for the week ending September 19 and about half of the average new in-fections per day reported during the week ending September 4, which was 434.
While the average daily number of new people infected continues to show improvement, last week’s daily average was about 18 times higher than the daily average in June, which was 13 people per day.
Public health officials, hospital groups and physicians continue to call for vaccination, masking and social distancing to slow the spread of the virus locally.
Vaccination rateOf the total population in the
county, 57.8 percent of people have been fully vaccinated as of Sunday. Of people eligible for the vaccine, 78.4 percent have taken at least one dose.
School trustees push for proactive messaging of Covid precautionsin a reportable form, and is anecdotal and not official, she said.
GISD’s dashboard can be viewed at www.georgetown-isd.org/coronavirus.
At the September 20 board meeting, 10 speakers, parents and students advo-cated for either a masking requirement in schools, or for the district to advocate more strongly for volun-tary mask-wearing. Face-masks are optional in GISD
schools.At recent board meetings
and workshops, Ms. Maul-din has stated she believes the district should do more to encourage mask-wear-ing. She cited — as a missed opportunity to be proactive — the signs on schools’ front doors which say, “Masks are optional.”
“How are these signs perceived?” she asked on September 20. “Does that mean people perceive the
meaning as, ‘My health is optional?’”
Trustee Stephanie Blanck concurred.
“I understand they’re optional, but [the message on the sign] has a totally different connotation and meaning,” she said.
“I applaud campuses that encourage masks. The sign could be stated differently. I feel for the teacher who feels they’re not being val-ued by the message of the
Continued from 1
ICU availability rises despite new casesWilco health district still assess uncontrolled community spread of Covid-19
Williamson County Covid-19 statisticsCases in 28 days 9,959Deaths in 28 days 95Total cases 71,820 Confirmed cases 61,820 Additional probable cases 10,606Total deaths 634
Vaccinated: eligible (12 and up) Fully 69.22% Partially 78.42%Vaccinated: total population Fully 57.81% Partially 78.42%
Hospital beds available 531 % hospital beds avail. 16%ICU beds available 17 % ICU beds avail. 3%GA-32 total TSA% 9.73%
Phase RED
Cases by cityGeorgetown 13,042Round Rock 16,422Hutto 4,695Cedar Park 4,522Leander 5,632Austin (in Wilco) 5,818Other towns 8,655
By age Cases DeathsUnder 5 1,5615 to 10 4,36611 to 13 2,82014 to 17 3,868 18 to 30 13,403 31 to 40 10,728 5541 to 50 9,723 51 to 60 7,014 8261 to 70 4,055 10571 to 80 2,247 15581 and over 1,429 237
Source: Williamson County Health Dept.
Campus Enrollment Student cases
Percent of
students
Staff cases
Total cases
Carver Elementary 727 34 4.67% 1 35Cooper Elementary 596 24 4.02% 4 29Ford Elementary 533 38 7.129% 1 39Frost Elementary 350 20 5.71% 0 20McCoy Elementary 486 40 8.23% 3 43Mitchell Elementary 667 36 5.39% 4 40Purl Elementary 598 16 2.67% 4 20Village Elementary 447 21 4.69% 1 22Williams Elementary 530 33 6.22% 3 36Wolf Ranch Elementary 648 39 6.01% 6 46Benold Middle School 724 44 6.07% 6 50Forbes Middle School 647 38 5.87% 1 39Tippit Middle School 575 23 4.0% 0 23Wagner Middle School 845 48 5.6% 1 49East View High School 2,076 102 4.9% 12 114Georgetown High School 1,985 79 3.9% 7 86Richarte High School 78 0 0% 1 1Georgetown Alternative Pro-gram
9 0 0% 0 0
Wmsn. County Juvenile Services Education
2 0 0% 0 0
Other Facilities(Transportation, Support Ser-vices, Hammerlun Admin. Ctr., Technology Ctr., Distribution Ctr.
NA 0 NA 28 28
TOTAL 12,527as of
09/09/2021
637 83 720
2021-22 GISD cumulative Covid cases as of September 27, 2021
Source: GISD Covid Dashboard https://www.georgetownisd.org/coronavirus
Wilco Commissioners approve capital projects for fiscal year• $300,000 on renovations
to air handling equipment for the sheriff ’s office gym.
Commissioners approved additional projects to be spent solely from the cap-ital projects fund, records show, since the county au-ditor said ARPA money would not be appropriate for these projects:
• $1.1 million on redun-dant paging communica-
tions equipment for fire and EMS;
• $506,000 on renovations to sheriff ’s office training facilities;
• $500,000 on additional rooms in the Justice Cen-ter;
• $371,000 on additional generators for backup pow-er at county facilities;
• $200,000 for repairs to the parking lot at the Emer-gency Services Operations
Center.To complete a floodplain
study, records show com-missioners also approved $850,000.
Commissioners also vot-ed to put on hold for the next fiscal year remodelling of county annex buildings on Commerce Boulevard in Round Round as well as the Precinct 4 Justice Court in Taylor.
Continued from 1
sign.”At the board workshop
and meeting, Chief Strate-gist Courtney Acosta report-ed estimated mask-wearing by students and staff, as compiled on September 9 from principals’ anecdotal data. Estimates included a wide range of possibilities shown in the table on Page 1.
“We know that masking is highly situationally and personally-dependent, and it’s very difficult to pin-point,” Ms. Acosta said. “We’re absolutely giving people the right to choose
whether or not they’re wearing a mask.”
Covid cases and clustersGISD’ Covid protocols
require the district to track elevated numbers, i.e. “clus-ters” in cohorts — such as a classroom, athletic team, or club.
If Covid cases in a co-hort exceed a rate of 15-25 percent, the district will — at the elementary lev-el — send a letter to notify parents, specify addition-al strategies used to limit spread, remind them of the option to quarantine and, if their children develop
Covid symptoms, to keep their children home.
Ms. Brasher confirmed Friday that classrooms at Carver and Ford elementa-ry schools have reached the 15-25 percent threshold and parents have received these letters informing them of that fact.
Ms. Acosta said that the district is not seeing that cluster rate of 15-25 percent at high schools.
On Monday, GISD’s Covid Dashboard showed a cumu-lative total for the school year of 716 cases — 632 stu-dents and 83 staff.