AdventHealth Morning Briefing: COVID trends and expanded testing capacity

September 24, 2020 — Today’s AdventHealth Morning Briefing featured Dr. Tim Hendrix, medical director at AdventHealth Centra Care, announcing a doubling of capacity for COVID-19 testing services at Centra Care locations in Florida.

The increase will allow Centra Care to conduct more than 20,000 tests per week, which averages about 100 tests per day at select locations. The rapid antigen COVID-19 test is run in-house with results in about 15 minutes. Visit CentraCare.org to make a reservation.

Highlights from the briefing include:

• Rapid antigen tests are 96% accurate if done within the first five days of symptoms: “The period of time when you have the highest amount of virus is the day before the start of symptoms to five days after…If you have symptoms, get the test.”
• Masking and social distancing works to prevent transmission: “Proximity matters. Wear masks – it’s very simple…We’ve mitigated the risk by wearing masks and with social distance.”
• Herd immunity will not happen soon: “We’re looking at antibody rates in the state of Florida of 7-8 percent. In hotspots like New York we’re looking at less than 20 percent. To get to herd immunity, we’ll need to get to 50-60 percent. We need to get to herd immunity by using a vaccine.”

We encourage you to refer to the video on the Life at AdventHealth Central Florida page to pull direct quotes from Hendrix. The video may be downloaded by following this link: https://vimeo.com/461375641#t=200s

Join us Thursday, Oct. 1, at 8:30 am for the next AdventHealth Morning Briefing where we’ll discuss the latest developments with COVID-19 and important information about breast cancer awareness.

The videos stream on the Life at AdventHealth Central Florida page and are saved in our newsroom at www.AdventHealthOrlandoNews.com.