Hospitals Could Get Overrun If Virus Not Slowed

WAAY 31's Breken Terry was live in downtown Florence, with a warning for the city and Lauderdale County.

Lauderdale county.

Dr. karen landers with the public health department said we need to take measures now like wearing masks and social distancing to prevent overwhelming alabama's healthcare system.

<landers- in terms of what can go on in the fall people talk about first wave second wave but we've never gotten out of the first wave in alabama.

Monday morning, doctor karen landers warned about the dangers of covid-19 while some people in the city auditorium still didn't wear masks.

Landers- take the measures now, lets do what we can now to reduce our numbers so that our healthcare system will be able to have an opportunity to recover and regroup before we have the respiratory season that comes along the number of people in helen keller hospital continues to rise.

Landers- right now our healthcare system is handling this okay but i stress that they are handling this with an all hands on deck approach where healthcare workers are working very long hours it is very stressful to our doctors and nurses.

Mayor steve holt said the lauderdale county numbers land them right in the middle of how everyone is handling it.

Holt- we have 372 positive cases out of 6,852 tests that have been administered so that's a 5.4% infection rate compared to tests administered that puts us in roughly in the middle of all 67 counties.

The governors safer at home order expires this friday.

Landers said the public health department has given her options on how to slow the spread of the virus but wouldn't go into details on those options.

I asked the governors office for details on the options and they haven't gotten back to me yet.

Live in flo bt waay31.