AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- It may be Super Bowl weekend, but Austin health officials say it's probably best to just skip the watch party this year and stay home.
"So we are really calling for everyone to really think about ... Super Bowl weekend," Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Howard-Hayden said during the department's weekly media availability Friday. "And my hope is that you stay home. You don't have parties with people that don't live in your home and you continue to do the things that we have asked you to do."
Enforcement teams will be out in increased numbers this weekend, Howard-Hayden said.
"The enforcement team is not only Code Enforcement, it is a team of city as well as county enforcement personnel. It is environmental health services staff, as well as APD and the fire marshal."
Dr. Mark Escott said that although the hospitalization numbers are getting better locally, the virus is still dangerous.
"I just want to remind people... our case counts still are at a level that we saw at the peak in July, on average," Escott said. "Six-hundred new cases a day, so we need to be ever more vigilant. We need to continue to be vigilant about reducing these transmission risks."
Officials continued to stress preventative measures such as hand-washing, mask-wearing, social distancing and staying home as much as possible.
"We need to make sure we know these social gatherings are our prime events for disease transmission to occur," said Chief Epidemiologist Janet Pichette. "Our case counts continue to remain at a very high level, while they may be flattening out. And we do see reductions in hospitalizations, which still continue to see high numbers of cases coming in on average every day."