Austin Public Health Revises, Expands Coronavirus-Related Orders

AUSTIN, TX — Austin-Travis County health officials on Friday extended an order centered on safeguards to help blunt spread of the coronavirus until mid-December.

To that end, officials extended the "Stay Home, Mask and Otherwise Be Safe Order" through Dec. 15. The revamped order extends existing requirements for face coverings, social distancing and limiting gatherings. It also extends development application deadlines to March 15, 2021 and changes nursing home standards to comply with new state guidelines allowing for some visitation, Austin Public Health explained in an advisory.

Read the Austin Order

Read the Travis County Order

Lastly, the Austin order stipulates that each school that offers instruction to students in one or more grades, pre-kindergarten through grade 12, must follow the phased-in approach in Exhibit E (image below) unless it will result in a loss of funding from the Texas Education Agency.

“Austin Public Health has been working closely with local school districts to develop detailed guidance so they can feel confident about school restarting,” Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden said in a prepared statement. “We used existing resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Texas Education Association to form the new rules and guidance document.”

Both the Austin and Travis County Orders be found on the Austin-Travis County COVID-19 Orders and Rules page. For more information and updates about COVID-19, visit AustinTexas.gov/COVID19.

Graphic provided by Austin Public Health.

“We are not out of the woods,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler said in a prepared statement. “COVID-19 infectivity is still too high — especially in the Hispanic community. We need to work together to get infectivity down across our entire city. If we want to stay safe and reopen, we must keep social distancing, washing our hands and wearing our masks.”