Officials at Baptist Hospital have confirmed they are treating a patient who had a presumptive positive test for COVID-19.
In a press conference Thursday morning, Governor Ron DeSantis announced a possible coronavirus case in Northwest Florida.
“We did this morning get another presumptive positive test for an individual (who is) elderly with severe underlying (health) conditions in Santa Rosa County. He had been (traveling internationally) and he’s not in shape to fully answer all the questions (that we have), so there’s an investigation on-going. But that is a presumptive positive, it’s not been confirmed by the CDC, but I think we’re at the point now where, with the local testing, we’re highly confident that that’s going to be verified.”
DeSantis did not identify the patient or say where in the county he lives or where he was traveling. The governor also talked about other Florida residents who have recently tested positive for the virus outside of the state.
“We were alerted yesterday that there was a Florida resident in Washington State who had tested positive. We’ve since found out that there’s a total of five Florida residents who had been traveling from China who are quarantined by the federal government that have tested positive. They are not going to be released from quarantine until they test negative, so we don’t anticipate them having any impact on people actually living in the state.”
The governor reiterated that while anyone can be infected by the virus, it is the elderly and the frail who are most at risk for serious illness. The Santa Rosa County Health Department released a statement Thursday afternoon, but did not provide any new information about the patient. Their message is the same as we’ve been hearing over the past few weeks about the virus: wash your hands, cover your coughs and sneezes and do not go into work if you are sick.