Austin Mayor gives COVID-19 updates on KVUE Daybreak | KVUE

welcome back to daybreak time right now 631 at many restaurants and stores back open this morning after closing four weeks due to the corona virus pandemic but there is still a push for state and local leaders to allow all businesses to reopen protesters gathered at the State Capitol

on Friday saying it is time for everyone to get back to work and this morning we are continuing our live conversation with Austin Mayor Steve Adler via Skype mayor Adler thank you so much for sticking with us this morning good morning good morning to you and speaking of

the businesses reopening with restrictions you yourself said the governor jumped the gun by making this call I know you briefly touched on this topic with Brian but what do you say what do you personally say to those who are a bit confused by the difference of opinion between

you and the governor well I understand what the governor did the governor's order his hold word said that everybody should stay at home everybody should minimize social interaction everybody should try to stay contained within their household unit except for essential services all the governor did was say he

kept that exact same language in but now he says except for essential services and reopen services but the general rule to avoid social gatherings to avoid large groups that's still very much in place and I'm concerned with what I see because I think people perceive that somehow or

another we've beaten this virus and the truth is is that we're no more beating this virus today than we were a month ago we're dipping our toe to see what happens if we increase some social interactions we know what's going to happen it's going to increase the number

of cases the question is how much that's why we're going to monitor the number but the calls for additional reopening is the the people relaxing and engaging in large social interactions is absolutely the wrong idea if you want to dip the toe in and have the toe dip

be successful everybody should continue wearing their face coverings if we put all of this out if we lose the disk then I think we're gonna be back into a second search and have to go back to the policies that we had before that's why everybody has to stay

real religious vigilant I agree with you and speaking of you know we're talking about social distancing I don't know if you're familiar with this a new report from a new york-based company called unicast they grade counties on social distancing and Travis County got a d-plus rating are you

familiar with this I want to know what your thoughts are on apparently in April we had an a now we've dipped down to d+ well you know I watched those rating agencies and different ones have different ways to measure social interactions there used to be two criterion unicast

and we did real well they had a third criteria we've never done well on that one I'm not exactly sure with that third criteria measures but the truth is is that we don't know the governor doesn't know no one knows what's going to happen to the amount of

infections as we begin to open up businesses so we're trying it other states are trying it and I'm concerned about it that's why we're going to have to vigilantly watch the numbers and everybody in the community needs to understand if those numbers start going up then we're going

to have to act we're going to have to do something to to pull those numbers back down quickly conceivably going back to the policies that we had before if we that's why that's why everybody needs to know that my order of the governor's order the county judge's order

still limit physical gatherings social gatherings to to to a large extent because that's the only way that we know how to fight this virus long term until there's a vaccine you've spoken a lot about the science and you're saying you know let's talk about scientists experts you know

they talk about a potential second wave a second surge this is something you've also addressed that it's concerning right it's real concerning what we know is that we were able to cut down physical and social interactions we were able to reduce them by 94% 94% no one was

sure that we could do that but we did it as a community but when you decrease by 94% the amount of social interactions you basically stop this virus in its tracks as it can't spread from person to person it's still there it's just not spreading what the scientists

tell us is if we relax and we don't decrease physical interactions by 94% but we dip below 80% then we're going to be on a path that overwhelms our hospitals so we have to stay higher than 80% well you look around this weekend do you think that we

still as a community kept physical and social action interactions to a 80% decrease or above we will know the answer to that question here in another two to three weeks because what we did this past weekend will start showing up in our hospitals in about three weeks and

then we'll know whether it was a big spike or a little spike whether it's something we can handle or something we can't handle I'm urging everybody to be really cautious about this so that the numbers in two or three weeks don't end up being a spike so that

we can make the governor's plan as as successful as it can possibly be and we do that by maintaining as much discipline as we possibly can okay you know on a physical level mayor how badly is our local economy suffering do you have any indication how it's doing

the local economy is is hurting really badly I think that in February and February we had something like 1500 unemployment insurance claims that were made as of April 18th the numbers just came in at the end of last week we're up to 60,000 unemployment insurance claims there are

a lot of people in this city that are that are hurting really badly and I and I understand the that caused them to reopen the economy put people back to work but we know from history that the best way to ensure that we have a city that can

come out of this is to not get over overrun by the overrun by the virus which is why the most important thing we can do for our economy right now is to contain the virus dip our toe but only dipping our toe into reopening businesses and then measure

that that impact we're doing everything we can to help with the economics city council not as a new program that's being launched this week to give people rental assistance we have the rise act that was actually giving cash payments and supporting nonprofits that were getting the help to

the people that need it the most the City Council is going to be meeting on Thursday but I think there are seven resolutions about getting emergency relief and relief to businesses and nonprofits and organizations in town that need assistance this day there are a lot of people hurting

all over this city and you know before we go mayor you know your position obviously comes with a great deal of responsibility how worried are you about trying to do the right thing and then maybe it going wrong you know we're worried all the time collectively is the

city because we're in such uncharted territories because nobody knows what the impact of relaxing and reopening businesses are going to be which is why we should do it just one tiny piece at a time and then and then then test it so it's so it's a concern to

see but I have faith in the doctors and the scientists and I believe the data and the numbers one of the things that we earn as a community over the last six to eight weeks is we learned how to to monitor the numbers we saw the trend line

so so I am kind that we will know if we're going off the rails in time to do something about it and there's a lot of peace of mind that comes from at least being able to say that we will be able to tell if we're headed in

the wrong direction but if we are and as a community we're going to have to snap to and get it under control again these are challenging times thank you so much mayor Adler for your candor and just for your your time we really appreciate it absolutely you take

care of you safe you too