Austin Public Health

Beyond anecdotes and data from emergency room visits, it’s hard to tell if what's going around at large is COVID, the common cold or respiratory troubles from the Saharan dust that has made its way to Austin.

With many folks using home tests, it takes a patchwork of metrics to get a full picture of COVID. But regardless of what the data shows at a granular level, the health guidance is the same — stay home if you're sick, cover your cough and get vaccinated.

A new confirmed case this spring, along with the presence of the virus wastewater, have raised the alarm about mpox's local spread.

The federal emergency expires at the end of the day. Austin Public Health officials remind people COVID is still circulating and asks them to do what they can to prevent its spread.

A City of Austin audit found that the Central Texas Allied Health Institute fabricated documents that led to the improper receipt of $417,000 in funds from Austin Public Health.

The local public health agency wants Austinites to get their vaccinations up to date before changes in federal policy potentially affect the availability of free shots.

Three years after Austin's first COVID case was detected, Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of UT Austin's Center for Pandemic Decision Science, says it's a matter of when, not if, another pandemic arrives. She and her fellow researchers want to be prepared.

For the better part of three years, the city has stumbled communicating when it would activate cold weather shelters. Nonprofits and first responders are tired of it.

The shelters are intended to serve people experiencing homelessness during extreme heat or severe cold. Extremely cold weather is on the horizon later this week.

It may be the off-season, but Austin's Public Health department is advising people to be careful of mosquitoes.