Half of Salvation Army shelter COVID-19 cases showed no symptoms
AUSTIN (KXAN) — KXAN’s learning more about a large outbreak of COVID-19 cases at the Salvation Army homeless shelter in Downtown Austin.
Austin Public Health tells KXAN that 14 of the 39 residents staying at the shelter tested positive for COVID-19 last month.
Seven of those 14 women who tested positive showed no symptoms.
Many believe asymptomatic cases fuel hope that the virus is less lethal than initially feared.
At the same time, without widespread testing, it’s impossible to know who may be contagious.
That makes containing outbreaks especially challenging for the Salvation Army, which has rolled out new protocols like mandatory temperature checks before entry and questions about symptoms like coughing.
“We take the symptoms that they give us,” said Maj. Lewis Reckline, Austin Area Commander.
A city spokesperson told KXAN Wednesday the sample size of the the Salvation Army’s asymptomatic cases was too small to draw any conclusions about the spread of COVID-19.
This is one of the illustrations that show there are asymptomatic cases in our clusters, which is why we still recommend wearing masks during this time,” the spokesperson said.
The shelter was thoroughly cleaned and reopened this week with the new protocols after being closed for about three weeks.
But not all the residents who were there before will return.
Part of the solution to protect those experiencing homelessness in Austin appears to be getting them off the street by any means possible.
APH Director Stephanie Hayden told City Council that all three of the hotels converted to protective lodging are filled to capacity with those experiencing homelessness.
As recently as April 21, two of those facilities were not close to full.
“Some of them may go back to the Salvation Army,” Hayden said Tuesday. “Some of them will stay where they are and get case management, or go to a longer term facility or something more permanent.”
Maj. Reckline told KXAN the Salvation Army shelter could now have 60 to 80 residents staying there, because new rooms have been opened up to bring in more people off the street.
He says the shelter is still able to increase social distancing as part of the new protocols.
The city tells us when COVID-19 testing of the Salvation Army shelter residents occurred, it tested 77 people total.
That included not only women staying at the shelter, but staff and residents of the ARCH because of the “known mixing of the two populations.”
When we asked Austin Public Health about releasing asymptomatic case data citywide, a spokesperson said APH is actively collecting the data but that it’s “not readily available.”
KXAN Investigator Kevin Clark will have a full report tonight at 10 p.m.