I echo Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea's statement. There are indeed no words for this, for Gov. Greg Abbott's recklessness. My heart goes out to this family for their incredible loss. This should never have happened.
"Necropolitics" is what we should call this. Via his mandate against requiring masks, he traffics in death.
-Angela Valenzuela
#Necropolitics
#Covid
AUSTIN, Texas — The health authority for Austin Public Health reported the first child death Tuesday from COVID-19 for the Austin area during a joint briefing with the City Council and Travis County Commissioners Court.
Local Health Authority Dr. Desmar Walkes announced the death during the weekly Austin Public Health covid update for local leaders. She said the child had a “comorbidity.” That’s a separate serious health issue that could result in death.
While hospitalizations are seen to be plateauing, there has been a surge in COVID-19 cases in schools.
Dr. Walkes told council members and commissioners that case numbers in schools have gone up tremendously. "We do know that the case numbers in our schools have gone up tremendously in this past week, and so we're cautiously optimistic about whether this plateau that we're seeing is going to persist or whether we're going to see another increase in our cases."
RELATED: Del Valle ISD parent says 3 of her children tested positive for COVID first week of school
She said school numbers reflect not using last year's mitigation techniques. "We found a marked increase in school cases across the state of Texas with schools reopening and not using the mitigation efforts that we used last year to decrease case spread in that environment and congregant setting when children are in close quarters and not social distancing," Dr. Walkes said.
Just in the last week they counted 817 pediatric COVID cases in Travis County schools and identified 17,240 close contacts and 67 clusters. But they note Texas Education Agency does not mandate that the close contacts quarantine themselves following an exposure.
Children under 12 currently are not allowed to be vaccinated, but it's possible that could change by the end of the year.
MORE| More TX students tested positive for COVID-19 last week than at any time last school year
County Commissioner Brigid Shea blasted Gov. Abbott for his fight against mask mandates, "I don't even have words for how reckless and dangerous it is that the governor is preventing school districts from requiring masks for a population in elementary and secondary school that legally cannot be vaccinated."
WATCH the briefing here.
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