New coronavirus cases in Central Florida have plateaued which has some doctors at AdventHealth worried about another surge.
Dr. Tim Hendrix, the health system's urgent care medical director, said Thursday that about 330 patients were hospitalized for COVID-19 at AdventHealth. That’s a decrease, but the decline has slowed, which he said was worrisome.
“If you look at that 300, that’s about where we were back in the fall after the summer surge. But then we went back up in the wintertime. So we’re worried that this has the potential to increase," he said.
There’s been a 16 percent increase in positive coronavirus tests in the past seven days over the previous week at AdventHealth Centra Care, which provides urgent care for the system.
Hendrix said this was to be expected after the busy spring break period in the Orlando area, but video of people on beaches in South Florida without face masks was concerning.
“There’s the potential for those people that are visiting South Florida from other states or other regions in Florida to return and continue the spread of that variant,” he said.
Hendrix said the only way to get the numbers back down is get more people vaccinated and to continue to use pandemic precautions like wearing masks and social distancing.
He also said evidence suggests the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are effective against the UK variant of the virus.
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