ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – As coronavirus cases increase in Central Florida, state lawmakers are ramping up testing sites. The new site in Orange County comes in the form of a drive-thru tent.
While the tents have been constructed in the parking lot of the Orange County Convention Center, a date of when operations will begin has not been released.
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“It’s not going to get done overnight. There’s a national backlog. We think they’re going to move to more higher throughput testing,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
Gov. DeSantis said Florida has 5,000 collection kits with swabs to test for COVID-19.
4,000 of those test kits are making their way to Broward County where officials are seeing the most cases.
“If you’re ten feet away from somebody, you’re protecting yourself, you’re going to be fine. You get in a group of people that are close by, then it becomes much more difficult to be able to guard against it,” officials said.
Premier Medical Associates has set up two testing sites in Central Florida, one in Ocala and one in the Villages.
According to officials, people can be tested for the coronavirus by appointment only at these sites.
“We’re working on a launch at the villages a big drive-thru testing site, except in the villages they won’t be driving their automobiles they will be driving their golf carts through,” DeSantis said.
Gov. DeSantis also announced Broward County kicked off their first drive-thru location testing 400 people. The governor said he hopes to roll out more in Central Florida.
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