AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Say good-bye to the familiar five stages of COVID risk, as Austin Public Health officials announced Tuesday they'll adopt the same guidelines as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moving forward.
Dr. Desmar Walkes, health authority for Austin and Travis County, made the announcement Tuesday morning while providing a COVID-19 update to Travis County Commissioners and the Austin City Council.
Instead of APH's former five-stage system, officials will now use a low, medium, and high risk stages, which is also used by the CDC. Based on the new guidelines, Travis County currently sits in a low risk stage.
"We continue to adapt our response as we enter a new phase of this pandemic." said Walkes in a statement. "While we enjoy the progress we’ve made, we should remember that this isn’t over yet; the potential for new variants still poses a threat."
For those who are up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations, low risk means precautions are optional when gathering, dining, and shopping. A medium risk stage recommends masking when social distancing is not possible, and a high risk stage urges everyone to use precautions when gathering, dining, and shopping.
For those at higher risk or who aren't up to date on their vaccines, low risk also means that precautions are optional when gathering, dining, and shopping. Those precautionary measures become recommended in a medium or high-risk stage.
The community levels are determined by a number of metrics, including new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 population in the past seven days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past seven days.
Earlier this month, Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown lifted their COVID-19 orders enforcing health authority rules, which made mask wearing optional in nearly all city and county facilities.