Epidemiologists: Austin May Have 500+ Unconfirmed Coronavirus Cases

Epidemiologists believe that Austin could have as many as seven times as many coronavirus cases as the number confirmed by testing, according to Dr. Mark Escott, the Interim Public Health Authority for Austin and Travis County. 

As of last night, the City of Austin and Travis County had 86 positive test results.

In modeling done by University of Texas scientists, the working assumption is that the actual caseload is far higher. “We applied a factor of seven to assume that there are seven times the number of of actual cases is the ones that we know about,” Dr. Escott said at a press conference.

That would mean 602 cases total: 86 confirmed cases and 516 cases that have not been confirmed by testing.

Escott said that this modeling contributed to his decision to recommend to county and city authorities to issue a “stay home” order, which they did today, effective at midnight.

“We know that we’re challenged by testing. We know that we’re challenged by getting folks through and getting results in a timely fashion. What concerns us the most right now is the modeling that we’ve seen with our partners at the University of Texas at Austin. That modeling suggests that in the short term in the next three to four weeks, our hospitals could reach capacity.” 

“That modeling suggests to us that if we put schools back in session, if we turn the businesses back on, if we allow people to go back to restaurants and bars and businesses today, that by May we will need to be able to provide more than 20,000 hospital beds a day for our community alone.”

Escott said it was better to ‘act decisively’ now rather than waiting until hospitals are overrun. He praised the U.S. president’s decision to halt travel from China, the cancellation of South By Southwest, and the closing of restaurants as moves that have slowed the spread of the virus. 

While these decisions were “difficult,” he added that it would be even more difficult to have to ration personal protective equipment or ICU beds, or to have to decide “who gets the ventilator or not.”

“Today in the city of Austin in Travis County, we have enough hospital beds, we have enough ICU beds, we have enough ventilators to get us through the next three to four weeks. But if we don’t take action today, we are going to run out and we’re going to run out soon.”

“We can’t take chances right now. Not when we are still identifying additional bed capacity, additional ventilator capacity, when we are still in the process of ramping up testing, when we are still trying to identify personal protective equipment that our healthcare providers and our first responders need to protect themselves and their families from this virus, I will not ask them to sacrifice themselves because we fail to act. We are acting today,” said Dr. Escott.

“And for these reasons, I recommended to the mayor and the judge that we transition to the stay-at-home order.”