AUSTIN, Texas — The KVUE Defenders have confirmed that in early November, Austin Mayor Steve Adler hosted his daughter’s wedding in Austin, then vacationed to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, with a group of eight people, including immediate and extended family.
Both the wedding and the vacation happened just as top health officials began urging families not to gather with others outside their households, and Adler himself asked people to stay home if they could.
Adler confirmed that the wedding and reception – held on Nov. 7 at Hotel Saint Cecilia on South Congress Avenue – had 20 guests in attendance. At the time, the city was under Stage 3 guidelines, which suggest no gatherings of more than 10 people.
KVUE dug into Austin's COVID-19 numbers in the days leading up to the wedding and in the weeks that followed.
In late October, Austin was averaging a little less than 90 new COVID-19 cases per day. To start November, that number climbed to the mid-90s. By the day of the wedding, the city was averaging up to around 125 cases.
By comparison, that number rose to 300 a few days before Thanksgiving.
As for hospital admissions – the metric that the City's guidelines are based on – that number was under 20 and falling at the end of October. But hospital admissions quickly started climbing to 25 by the day of the wedding and continued increasing to 37 by Thanksgiving.
Below is the graph for the hospital admissions average on Nov. 7, the day of the wedding:
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