Austin Mayor Is Latest Official To Not Practice The COVID-19 Precautions They Preach
The mayor of Austin, Texas, is the latest public official to break from their own COVID-19 recommendations, telling residents last month to stay home while he hosted a wedding and vacationed in Mexico.
Democratic Mayor Steve Adler boarded a private jet with several others in early November to vacation for a week at a family timeshare in Cabo San Lucas, according to the Austin American-Statesman, which broke the story on Wednesday. The trip reportedly came one day after Adler hosted an outdoor wedding with 20 guests for his daughter at a time when health officials were urgently warning of a COVID-19 surge.
On Nov. 9 ― one night into his trip, according to the American-Statesman ― Adler posted a Facebook video addressing Austin residents about curbing the spread of the virus.
“We need to stay home if you can,” he said in the video. “This is not the time to relax. We are going to be looking really closely. … We may have to close things down if we are not careful.”
Adler did not disclose in the video that he was in Mexico, a country that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specifically advised Americans ahead of Thanksgiving not to travel to because of the spike in infections.
According to Travis County data, the Austin area saw more new COVID-19 cases in November than in the two previous months combined. The county reported 6,234 new cases last month, compared with 2,627 in October and 2,998 in September.
A week after Adler returned from his vacation, health officials raised Austin’s coronavirus alert level to Stage 4, which includes recommending all residents avoid nonessential travel. At the time of the mayor’s vacation, Austin was in Stage 3, which recommended that residents avoid gatherings of more than 10 and that higher-risk people avoid nonessential travel.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. He did tell the American-Statesman that guests at his daughter’s wedding...
