COVID In Florida: Demand For Testing At An All-Time High As Delta Variant Surges
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – As COVID infections soar in South Florida, demand for testing is at an all-time high.
The line at Mills Pond Park in Ft. Lauderdale stretched nearly twice around the testing site on Monday, reminiscent of the picture a year ago when the virus ran rampant.
George de France and Steve Heal waited three hours for a test at the park Monday.
They are both vaccinated but had some COVID like symptoms.
"It's ridiculous. I don't know whether it takes ending up in the hospital for people to believe this is serious. It's sad," said DeFrance.
The line for COVID testing was equally long at Tropical Park in Miami-Dade on Monday.
While COVID variants are causing this surge in sickness, it appears the highly contagious Delta variant is king in South Florida.
"We are now at 90% Delta in our samples we sequenced in the past week," explained David Andrews, who is Vice-Chair of Patient Pathology at Jackson Health System.
"In the unvaccinated population, individuals will become more susceptible to getting sick and succumbing to this disease. We are seeing that from the extraordinary expansion of hospitalizations," he said.
COVID hospitalizations statewide are at an all-time high and in South Florida, the numbers are rising rapidly.
Monday, Jackson Health had 238 COVID patients, which is 99 more than two weeks ago.
Broward Health System was at 247 patients Monday, which is 141 more COVID patients than a week ago.
