ORLANDO, Fla. – For the first time since the spring, AdventHealth Centra Care is reporting a drop in the COVID positivity rate at its urgent care clinics.
Dr. Tim Hendrix, the medical director for Centra Care, said he was encouraged by these numbers.
“For the last three or four weeks we’ve had a steady decline in our positivity rates and the number of positive tests coming back,” Hendrix said.
Hendrix said the urgent care peaked at a 26% positivity rate in the middle of July.
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“Now it’s fallen to an 8.8% as of [Thursday],” he said.
Hendrix said AdventHealth uses the positivity rate to forecast COVID hospitalizations. As of Thursday, the hospital reported 530 patients are currently being treated for COVID across Central Florida. The hospital reported a peak of nearly 1,700 hospitalizations on August 23.
AdventHealth said the last time hospitalizations were this low was mid-July.
“It takes them [COVID patients] a while to be discharged. As our numbers come down, we’ll slowly see the hospital numbers decline behind them,” Hendrix said.
Hendrix said they’re keeping a close eye on the positivity rate among children. He said children account for one out of every five positive tests.
“They’re still are getting infected with COVID, they’re still transmitting it, so there’s still that chance of transmission within schools,” Hendrix said. “So we’re advising still to not let off the brakes on the mitigation efforts such as wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding large crowds.”
A COVID vaccine could be available for younger kids by November. Earlier this week Pfizer gave the FDA its research on the effectiveness of its shot for children ages 5 to 11.
Hendrix shared this message with parents who may be hesitant to get their younger children vaccinated.
“I think educating the parents, knowing that this has gone through a thorough process of testing, verification and these are safe and highly effective vaccines,” he said.
Hendrix adds as we head into the holidays and winter months, it is important to get as many people vaccinated so we can avoid another surge.
“Even though numbers are declining, this is not over. As we’ve learned with these types of pandemics, they will come in waves and there’s a good chance that we’ll have a winter wave because this is a seasonal virus,” he said.