Austin Public Health is holding a Q&A today regarding COVID-19. Things are just starting off. THREAD:

"We are still at a critical phase," @MeaEscott starts, calling for people to work together to fight this virus. "We cannot afford to have major fires burning in all our major cities."

"Today in Travis County we expect to surpass a number we hoped we wouldn't and that is 10,000 cases," says @MeaEscott

"If this trend continues, I'm going to have to recommend...that we re-enter a stay at home order," says @MeaEscott.

First question is about hospital capacity. Escott says hospitals usually operate at 85% or higher capacity. Says he's not concerned about the 70% capacity right now, but he is concerned about the rate of increases.

Escott says the process is underway for an alternate care site.

Next question is about positivity rate.

"We're not doing enough as a community to really get a handle on this," says @MeaEscott.

He said the mask is essential. "It's not just about risk when you go out to businesses or to work..." he says it's also still a risk when you hang out with extended family and friends.

Escott brought this up yesterday at the Travis County Commissioners meeting. He talked about asymptomatic people and their ability to spread the disease, warning people to still follow the guidelines even if someone looks healthy.

Nest question is about amount of testing. Escott says they are working on a task force to help bring in data, including data about how much testing is done each week.

Hayden is saying that it's important for APH to know all of the partners that are conducting tests. That information, in theory, would feed into the task force that Escott mentioned.

Next question is about hospital occupancy rates. Escott says they are working with hospital partners to get a data feed regarding hospital capacity. He says they expect to have that later this week.

He says they don't want to know just the number of available beds/ventilators--he says they want to know how many of those beds/ventilators have staff that can work them.

Escott says this is a difficult task for hospital partners to accomplish though

Question: "How can the city and county possibly understand the extent of the virus’ spread within the community without testing people without symptoms?"

Escott says they are working to increase capacity. He says the positivity rates are higher for those that have symptoms

"As soon as we have additional capacity, we will provide testing for asymptomatic folks."