AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Fresh off the Christmas holiday weekend, COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen past the Stage 4 threshold in Austin Public Health's risk-based guidelines.
So far, the area officially remains at Stage 3. However, with Monday's update from Austin Public Health, the 7-day moving average of new hospitalizations has steadily risen from 15 on Dec. 21 to 28 on Dec. 27.
Prior to the Christmas holiday, health officials lowered the threshold for Stage 4 from 29 to 25, due in part to concerns over the high transmission rate attributed to the omicron variant of COVID-19.
The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care beds across the five county metro area has also steadily risen from a recent low of 32 on Dec. 19, to 51 on Dec. 27. Ventilator usage has also nearly doubled in the last week.





