A Message from Alachua County Rescue Chief Harold Theus
Press release from Alachua County
On August 5, 2021, Alachua County Commission Chair Ken Cornell signed a Declaration of a State of Emergency in Alachua County due to the alarming spike in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and the severity of the Delta variant.
This most recent surge of COVID-19 infections has placed an unprecedented strain on local emergency health care resources. Hospital admissions of patients experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 escalated quickly towards the end of July and have currently peaked at over 350 patients amongst the three hospitals, with the overwhelming majority at UF Health and North Florida Regional Medical Center. As such, local hospitals have created additional bed space by reducing or eliminating elective surgeries, bringing in additional staff, and opening more floors.
Alachua County is fortunate to have a robust regional hospital system, and we enjoy the benefits of an excellent partnership. Over the last few days, staff from the County and the hospitals have worked together and have been finding solutions for this unprecedented crisis. Beginning August 6th, our citizens will be able to view daily hospital census counts on the Alachua County dashboard. Keeping privacy matters in mind, the dashboard cannot display some details but will show total daily bed counts of admitted patients experiencing symptoms of COVID-19. Our community Emergency Rooms are open if you need them, but please keep in mind they are seeing patient numbers that are unprecedented in our area.
Finally, we ask that you keep those that are ill, and the men and women who are caring for them, in your thoughts and prayers.
1. Will the dashboard show the bed count of people experiencing symptoms or actually diagnosed? 2. What’s the cycle
Rate of the PCR tests being used? 3. how much does the
Hospital get paid per day for a person “experiencing symptoms”? 4. What medical treatments are the hospitals using to treat the symptoms? 5. Will the dashboard tell us
If the people were vaccinated or unvaccinated who
have been admitted experiencing symptoms? 6. Will the
Dashboard be reporting asymptomatic people who test
Positive but are in the hospital with something else like
A motorcycle crash? 7. Is it possible that this dashboard of people
“Experiencing” symptoms can be misused to support a certain political agenda?