AdventHealth COVID-19 update — July 20, 2021

Fla., July 20, 2021 — Dear news desks and reporters:

AdventHealth has seen a significant uptick in COVID-19 cases at its facilities across Central Florida in recent weeks. Here is some information to assist in your coverage:

• We have seen an increase in hospitalizations in Central Florida over the last few weeks, but we still have fewer COVID patients compared to the peak of about 900 in January. As of today, there are about 700 COVID patients at AdventHealth hospitals in Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Lake, Polk, Volusia and Flagler counties. (As a reminder, AdventHealth releases its division-wide COVID census each week during the AdventHealth Morning Briefing. The next update will be provided Thursday morning, and moving forward, will continue with that established cadence.)
• While the rising number of hospitalized patients is evidence of the risk still posed by the virus in our community, it is not cause for alarm in terms of hospital capacity.
• Our hospitals are designed in such a way that spaces are flexible and expandable.
• We have sufficient supplies of ventilators, monitors and other specialized equipment in order to quickly convert spaces in the hospital to both standard and ICU level rooms, should they be needed.
• AdventHealth has an extensive health care system in place in Central Florida so we can locate patients to the facility that best matches the level of care they need.
• Some 94% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 across our nationwide system are unvaccinated.
• We continue to urge everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated, which is the most effective way to prevent hospitalization and death from COVID-19 as well as prevent new variants of the virus from spreading.
• AdventHealth continues to offer COVID vaccines for the public at six Centra Care locations.
• AdventHealth also is offering COVID vaccines to inpatients at its hospitals throughout the Central Florida Division.

The next AdventHealth Morning Briefing will be on Thursday, July 22 at 9 am on the Life at AdventHealth Facebook page, which will include an update on the latest COVID census. AdventHealth experts will take reporter’s questions via text or in the comments field on Facebook. We ask that you keep the following in mind:

• The texting option is a feature only of the Facebook Live series. It is not operational outside that window.
• If a member of your team is asking a question, we ask that they identify themselves and the media outlet.
• Please keep in mind who the speakers are and what their medical expertise is when asking questions.

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