AUSTIN, Texas — Super Bowl LV kicks off this Sunday. And whether you're watching to witness the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers battle it out, or just tuning in to watch the commercials or musical performances from The Weeknd and H.E.R., you may be feeling the urge to kick back at a watch party with friends.
But it's important to remember the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging on, and Austin Public Health is urging you to resist and stay home.
"So we are really calling for everyone to really think about ... Super Bowl weekend," said APH Director Stephanie Howard-Hayden 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."
In their weekly question-and-answer session Friday, the local health leaders continued to stress their preventative measure suggestions 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."
GRAPHS: Coronavirus data Feb. 4, 2021
"I just want to remind people ... our case counts still are at a level that we saw at the peak in July, on average," said Interim Medical Director and Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott. "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."
Hayden-Howard said local code enforcement crews will be out in increased numbers this weekend, as the Super Bowl is on their calendar of events for increased enforcement efforts.
"The enforcement team is not only Code Enforcement, it is a team of city as well as county enforcement personnel," she said. "It is environmental health services staff, as well as APD and the fire marshal."
Hayden-Howard acknowledged that though Austin-Travis County cannot "enforce our way" out of the pandemic, it truly lies in the public's hand to heed the warnings and advice of the experts to protect themselves and those around them.
"We have seen a lot of households, but from individuals who perhaps were not careful, were involved in social gatherings and then bring it home to their family," she said. "Sometimes it's siblings, sometimes it's parents, sometimes it's grandparents, and it can have a devastating effect. So we need folks to continue to make the decision to stay home, to only go out if they have to, and to celebrate Super Bowl at home with their family who lives in their household."
In the meeting, Dr. Escott also discussed the news that Johnson & Johnson has asked U.S. regulators to approve their first one-shot vaccine.
"We're all anxiously awaiting that that hearing on Feb. 26, when the FDA will consider the application," he said. "We're interested to see the detailed data associated with that submission. But ultimately, this can have a profound impact on our ability to vaccinate people for a couple of reasons. Number one, it has the potential of increasing the availability of vaccines substantially. The indications that we have is that probably the initial allocations will be on the small side, but that Johnson & Johnson has the ability to rapidly expand that. The other big factor that we have here is that it's a single dose in one shot and you're done. And that certainly makes the logistics of delivering vaccine much easier."
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