| Austin-Travis County officials announced on August 5 that the Austin area has re-entered Stage 5 of the COVID-19 Risk Based Guidelines. Full recommendations regarding actions for vaccinated and unvaccinated/partially vaccinated individuals can be found online at www.austintexas.gov/COVID19.
Fully vaccinated individuals should: - Wear a mask.
- Avoid large gatherings where masks are not required if you are high-risk with underlying conditions.
- Help us get the rest of the population vaccinated by talking with your loved ones.
Partially or unvaccinated individuals should: - Get fully vaccinated.
- Stay home and avoid gatherings or travel. Choose curbside and delivery options.
- Wear a mask when conducting essential activities if you must go out.
- Choose establishments that are protecting their customers and staff with mask wearing, social distancing and measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Visit www.ATXrecovers.com for additional business recommendations and resources to prioritize the well-being of your employees and customers.
Protecting Your Employees - Strongly encourage all employees to wear face masks and provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to employees.
- To ensure adequate distancing between staff in communal areas, limit in-store and on-site capacity and reduce capacity in enclosed spaces like elevators.
- Encourage all employees to become fully vaccinated and grant paid time off for employees to become vaccinated.
- Instruct employees with COVID-19 symptoms or who have contacted someone with COVID-19 symptoms to notify their supervisor and stay home.
- Frequently disinfect and clean throughout the day, especially high touch areas like door handles, registers, checkout lanes, public restrooms, and employee break rooms.
Protecting Your Customers and Our Community - Consider eliminating indoor dine-in service. Provide drive-through services, click-and-collect online shopping, shop-by-phone, curbside pickup, and delivery options where feasible.
- Strongly encourage all customers to wear face masks and post clearly visible signage (Face Covering English Flyer PDF, 108 KB, and Volante de Mascarillas en Español PDF, 151 KB) for your businesses' mask policy.
- To ensure adequate distancing between customers, limit in-store and on-site capacity and reduce capacity in enclosed spaces like elevators.
- Provide touchless hand sanitizer stations and no-touch trash cans for customers.
- Frequently disinfect and clean throughout the day, especially high touch areas like door handles, registers, checkout lanes, and public restrooms, dressing rooms.
Seven Tips to Prepare for Changing Conditions - Be prepared to change business practices in order to maintain critical operations.
- Identify alternative suppliers for critical goods and services.
- Share best practices with other employees in your community.
- Prioritize job functions to ensure continuous operations.
- Formalize best practices based on lessons learned since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Ensure redundancy among your employees/workforce in case absenteeism spikes.
- Deliver services remotely (e.g., web, phone, video).
Reporting COVID-19 Infections and Deaths
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires employers to record work-related cases of COVID-19 illness on OSHA's Form 300 logs if the case is a confirmed case of COVID-19, the case is work-related, and the case involves one or more relevant recording criteria (e.g., medical treatment, days away from work). Visit OSHA's website for more information.
Getting a Vaccine or Test
COVID-19 vaccinations and tests are free and require neither identification nor insurance. In many cases, residents can walk up without an appointment. Residents can locate providers in their area using Vaccines.gov or texting their zip code to 438829 (822862 in Spanish) to find a nearby clinic.
Residents can also call Austin 3-1-1 (512-974-2000) for more information regarding COVID-19 testing and vaccinations. Additionally, Capital Metro is also providing free transportation to vaccination sites through their VaccineAccess program. | 
