July Peak of Florida COVID-19 Hospitalizations Predicted by AdventHealth CEO on CBS’ Face the Nation
14 July 2020 | Terry Shaw, president and CEO of AdventHealth, was featured this Sunday on CBS’ Face The Nation broadcast.
The AdventHealth network of hospitals and other facilities is headquartered in Altamonte Springs, Florida.
On the show, Shaw said that, providing people in Florida wear masks and practice social distancing, peak COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state would take place at some point this month.
Referencing his remarks, the Orlando Sentinel stated Florida reported 15,300 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the highest single-day rise in cases since the start of the crisis. This set a one-day record for the United States according to The New York Times. Florida now has 269,811 cases.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that Disney reopened some of its parks in the region this weekend and AdventHealth had provided guidance to Disney on safe re-opening measures.
“As a health-care provider, my job is to help people do things safety,” Shaw said on CBS. “I will tell you, based upon the way Disney is approaching this with limiting people in doing all the screenings that they’re doing, I personally am a Disney season ticket holder, and I wouldn’t hesitate to go to Disney as a health-care CEO based on the fact that they’re working extremely hard to keep people safe.”
Shaw told Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan that AdventHealth had sufficient personal protective equipment, ventilators and teams that have been learning how best to treat patients with the virus.
“I give you an example. Our length of stay in our ICU for COVID patients has dropped in half. The number of people coming in to our hospital with COVID that need a ventilator, we’ve also been able to cut that in half. And because of those things, our death rate has also been cut in half [since the beginning of the pandemic],” said Shaw.
AdventHealth is a non-profit health care organization that operates over 40 hospital campuses within the Southern and Midwestern regions of the United States. Its headquarters is in Altamonte Springs, Florida. It is affiliated with the Adventist Church.
