BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — With COVID-19 cases starting to spike again in Brevard County, area hospitals are taking precautionary measures to make sure they can handle any influx in COVID in-patients they receive.

On Tuesday, Health First erected a hospital tent outside of the emergency room entrance at Holmes Regional Medical Center. Hours later, a similar tent went up at Palm Bay Hospital.

“What this represents for us is really options and flexibility,” Health First spokesman Lance Skelly said. “So, as we have other patients coming into the hospital for different needs other than COVID, we want to be able to treat some individuals in a socially distant manner. So, keeping them out here, the more we can keep our patients separated and keep them safe, especially as we have more COVID patients coming into the hospital, that’s what this is going to allow us to do.”

On Monday, the hospital announced that from July 28 through Aug. 15, it would postpone “scheduled, nonemergent surgeries and procedures which require a hospital bed.” That decision was made to accommodate more COVID-19 patients and allow “clinical staff to provide additional support in critical areas.”

The Holmes Regional location also converted a pediatric unit into one for COVID-19 patients. Right now, the Health First hospital system is seeing about 150 in-patients, the vast majority of whom are unvaccinated. Those numbers top the previous peak they saw following the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, which was about 120 across the four hospitals.

“We’re seeing a much younger crowd. The fact that we’re doing this now should pretty much speak volumes.” Skelly said, referencing the addition of the tent space.

Vaccination efforts pick up

Health First is part of the chorus of voices across Brevard County encouraging those who have not yet been vaccinated to get the shot. County officials pointed out that in just the past week, more than 2,100 people tested positive for COVID-19, contributing to a 20.3% positivity rate. 

On Tuesday, several people stopped into the Health First vaccine clinic in Melbourne to get their first shot of the Pfizer vaccine. 

Among them was registered nurse Eileen Pszczola. She said watching the recent impact of the delta variant helped convince her that now was the time to get her shot.

“With the new spike that’s coming around and a lot of my friends are coming down with COVID,  I just kind of want to protect myself,” Pszczola said. 

She said many people she knows are doing the same in light of this most recent spike in cases. 

Another person who came into the clinic Tuesday was jazz saxophone player and high school basketball coach Darrell Moody. He said he spoke with a family friend who is in pharmaceuticals who advised him that the shot was safe to take.

He said he’s looking forward to being able to talk to more of his family and friends about his experience, which he described as quick and painless.

“I can let them know that I’ve taken it because we’ve had some close family members just pass recently from this disease,” Moody said. “So, it’s pretty scary and better safe than sorry.”

Health First also opened a new vaccine clinic at the Viera Health First Family Pharmacy location on North Wickham Road as of July 26.