HEALTH CARE
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RIDING THE WAVES Area health experts in January said the new normal means experiencing in uxes of COVID-19 cases and adapting to rolling safety measures.
New COVID-19 treatment comes to Austin area Austin Public Health con rmed Jan. 14 that it has a limited number of P zer COVID-19 antiviral pills. The pills, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December, are taken at home when symptoms are mild to moderate to reduce the severity of illness by interfering with the virus’s ability to replicate, according to the FDA. APH o cials said the pills are being distributed to the community and showing early indicators of being e ective. However, APH does not have a lot of data because of the newness of the treatment and the limited number of doses it received. Opioid lawsuits to pay out locally On Dec. 9, Austin City Council signed on to two settlement agreements between the state and drug manufacturers and providers regarding the opioid epidemic. The lawsuits will bring the city an estimated $5.9 million over the next 18 years and are just two in a string of multimillion- dollar settlements announced by the Texas Attorney General’s O ce. Travis County, which also signed on to the agreements, released a harm reduction strategy in December. The plan includes expanding local training and the availability of overdose prevention medicines. OPIOID EPIDEMIC IN TRAVIS COUNTY 240 Travis County residents died from drug overdoses in 2020 30% increase in county overdose deaths from the previous year SOURCES: TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE, TRAVIS COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
APH begins monitoring the pandemic
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SOURCE: AUSTIN PUBLIC HEALTH COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
AustinPublic Health: COVID 19here to stay BY BENTON GRAHAM In May 2021, Travis County was poised to reach Austin Public Health’s soft target for herd immunity—67% of the population being vaccinated against COVID-19. However, less than a year later, with 71% of Travis County residents vaccinated, health o cials said COVID- 19 is becoming an endemic—an infectious disease that sticks around, like the u—and is likely to continue to play a role in the lives of Central Texans. Austin Public Health Director Adrienne Sturrup said it is hard to predict exactly what will happen in 2022, but she said the region needs to come to terms with a new reality. “I think the thing for the public to realize is that we have a new normal, and these mitigation measures that we talk about are going to be part of our normal routine,” Sturrup said. “Masking is going to be part of our normal lives, being more conscientious when we’re sick ... is going to be part of our normal everyday life.” She added that these measures are similar to APH’s “Boo the Flu” campaign, where the public health agency provides guidance on sneezing properly, staying home when sick and washing hands regularly. As the year begins, the Austin-Travis County area sits in Stage 5 of the COVID-19 risk-based guidelines and sur- passed a record for hospitalizations, reaching a seven-day moving average of 129 on Jan. 19. The surge has been
largely driven by the emergence of the omicron variant, which o cials say accounts for close to 85% of local cases. The percent of residents in Travis County who are fully vaccinated, meaning they have received all of their COVID-19 shots, not including boosters, is higher than the state average of 62% of Texans, as of Jan. 13, according to a Texas Department of State Health Services. However, Sturrup said it is important for APH to continue to nd ways to reach communities with lower vaccination rates. In particular, Travis County’s Black population accounts for about 4% of the fully vaccinated population despite accounting for 9% of the county’s population, according to APH data. The Hispanic population accounts for about 22% of the fully vaccinated population but 34% of the county’s population. That disparity adds another layer to a pandemic that continues to take a greater toll on the Black and Latino communities, Sturrup said. “The communities that we’re talking about, there are historic issues of mistrust. There are historic disparate health conditions that made these populations more subject to severe disease from COVID[-19],” Sturrup said. “It’s a marathon, right? ... We’re just at mile ve.” Dr. Jewel Mullen, associate dean for health equity at the Dell Medical School, agrees it will be important to continue to increase vaccination rates in the community and globally. In particular, she said public health experts should try to combat misinformation campaigns. In Mullen’s view, 2022 has the potential to be a year in which people shift from just surviving to excelling. “We want to mobilize, not just around, ‘We don’t want to get sick. ...’ We ought to mobilize around ... thriving again,” Mullen said.
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