AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- After being sidelined for more than week due to extreme winter weather, Austin Public Health resumed its COVID-19 operations on Sunday.
“Our whole community was impacted by this week’s weather events, including staff and their families," APH Director Stephanie Hayden-Howard said in a statement. "We will have to simultaneously recover at home while putting in longer hours at work to regain the ground that was lost. I am humbled to work with such a dedicated team to get us over the finish line despite the setbacks.”
Personnel from APH joined in the emergency weather response efforts while continuing to plan for upcoming vaccine distribution efforts.
According to APH, more than 3,300 COVID-19 vaccination appointments were canceled due the severe winter weather, beginning on Feb. 13. Staff is working to reschedule those appointments, as well as appointments that would have otherwise been scheduled over the past week.
"It will require an immense amount of staff time, work, and effort to resume all of our operations to the full capacity and efficiency that we were seeing before the weather hit," interim health authority Dr. Mark Escott said. "We appreciate the community’s understanding and patience as we work through any bumps along the way."
COVID-19 testing and data entry operations were also impacted by the winter weather, officials said. Both should be getting back to normal this week, although the data over the next week may be somewhat skewed based on the lack of testing and data entry.
"We know that there may be a high demand for testing once our sites can reopen and data will show that not a lot of people were tested over the past week,” epidemiologist Janet Pichette said. "When staff can safely return, they will continue their reporting. They will have to work overtime to eliminate the backlog but they are dedicated to giving the public the data they need to make proper decisions for themselves and their loved ones."
