New Announcement by the City of Austin, Travis County and the CDC
Updated Friday, June 12 – Today, the CDC has issued its long awaited precautionary measures for mitigating the spread of coronavirus. Additionally, the City of Austin has unanimously voted to cancel July 4th activities.
Together these announcements address what is a clear trend of the “return” of cases in particular geographic regions in our country. The State of Texas, Travis County, and Austin are in fact part of that trend of “spiking” and “returning” infection rates.
Please see a short summary of the CDC precautionary measures here: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-06-12/cdc-posts-long-awaited-tips-for-minimizing-everyday-risk
The guidelines repeat earlier advice about wearing face coverings, especially if it’s difficult to keep at least 6 feet away from others.
Please see a short summary of the City of Austin July 4th cancellations here: https://www.austindailyherald.com/2020/05/july-4-fireworks-2020-pool-season-cancelled/
The recent spike in the combination of: new hospitalizations for COVID-19 patients, coronavirus new cases recorded, and an increasing % of positive testing outcomes as a rate of total tests (all within Travis County and the City of Austin) has Travis County and the City of Austin jointly encouraging precautions be taken by residents to help mitigate the localized spike.
Please see Mayor Adler’s communication today here: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/austin-coronavirus-updates-cases-spike/269-5e7306b0-244e-481c-bf40-1f20e798bbed
The summary of Mayor Adler's position statement includes the expectation that either today, or Monday June 15th, prior to the expiration of the Travis County and City of Austin combined orders for sheltering at home, these orders will be *extended* until further notice. The practical application of these orders is confusing for residents considering that the State of Texas has issues its own decree to which lifts any localized County and Municipal sheltering orders. Should you have specific questions related to what this means for you as a resident of the City of Austin or Travis County, we encourage you to contact the City of Austin and/or the Travis County Department of Health. Mozart's will adhere to the State of Texas requirements while at the same time following the advisement of any and all precautionary measures provided by these recent communications.
Mozart's continues to practice safe social and physical distancing in a manner that places the overall community, our employees and our patrons interests above any individual preference that may believe or feel these precautions to not be warranted. We were visited by the City of Austin COVID-19 enforcement division on Thursday, June 11th and they applauded our requirements for:
- Mandatory mask wearing for all transactions conducted in Mozart's Cafe, Bakery & The Boat Towne Market;- Mandatory 6' line spacing for all individual groups queuing up to enter the Cafe along with those within the interior spacing of the Cafe and Market while waiting for Order Fulfillment;- Mandatory NO MOVE requirement of all Mozart's exterior tables arranged purposely on the deck with 8' distancing between each table
We consider ourselves to be fortunate to be open and privileged to be operating in a primarily "outside" open-air environment wherein recent scientific research has suggested provides a better, more mitigated environment for the spread of the novel coronavirus. As a result, we intend to continue to remain vigilant in these advised precautionary practices for the benefit of the entire ATX community - indefinitely. Please see the recent COVID-19 "Indoors vs Outdoors" research report and abstract here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.28.20029272v2
We appreciate all our employees, customers and individual community efforts intent on keeping ATX safe as we adhere to the advice of our Healthy, Safety and State, County and Municipal authorities seeking to work together to make our community a model environment where we have all helped mitigate the risk of further spread of this pandemic.