APH sees post-Thanksgiving COVID-19 cases as vaccine distribution nears
AUSTIN, Texas - Austin health officials are starting to see the coronavirus numbers from the Thanksgiving holiday trickle in.
Recent contact tracing efforts have led Austin Public Health to large gatherings over the past few weeks.
“We are hearing story after story after story about families who gathered on Thanksgiving, and allowed people who lived outside of their immediate home to be coming in and having the holiday and now multiple people are becoming ill," said APH chief epidemiologist Janet Pichette.
DOWNLOAD THE FOX 7 AUSTIN NEWS APP
SIGN UP FOR FOX 7 AUSTIN EMAIL ALERTS
Ahead of the upcoming winter holidays, they are encouraging all to stay the course when it comes to COVID-19 precautions.
“For those of you who did not travel during the Thanksgiving holiday and only had your meal with your family and established a new tradition, my hope is that you will continue that,” said APH director Stephanie Hayden.
RELATED: Austin area to receive 13,600 COVID-19 vaccine doses, but who will get it?
Austin Public Health is about to receive 13,650 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and is preparing to distribute them to healthcare workers first.
“The data from Pfizer is excellent and the data we've seen from Moderna is excellent as well. The other encouraging thing we see from this data is the impact on severe disease with only one individual in the group receiving the vaccine that had a severe illness. It wasn’t that severe because the person didn't even need to be hospitalized,” said Dr. Mark Escott, interim health authority.
RELATED: UT Austin discusses plan for COVID-19 vaccine distribution
Escott said although news of the vaccine is great, more doses won't come in until months later, and this first round only gets to a small portion of the community. “We need a lot more doses just to cover those at high risk for severe illness and death,” he said.
RELATED: Abbott plans for 100,000 people to begin the vaccination process
If you are younger and healthy, it is likely the vaccine will not be available to you until spring or summer.