County commissioners formalized an agreement Tuesday to provide temporary housing for homeless during the pandemic.
Homeless people diagnosed with COVID-19 or its respiratory symptoms have a place in Orange County to go besides a hospital or a shelter.
County commissioners formalized an agreement Tuesday with the owners of a hotel near International Drive to provide temporary housing during the pandemic.
“There has been very low demand so far,” said county spokeswoman Despina McLaughlin, adding that an informal agreement has been in place since April 10.
The county will pay AD1 Orlando
Hotels LLC $50 per room per day at the Best Western, up to $200,000, according to procurement records.
McLaughlin said a handful of people with confirmed cases of coronavirus who require isolation but not hospitalization have been directed to the hotel.
Located off I-Drive, about four miles from Universal Studios and SeaWorld Orlando, the hotel’s rooms feature free Wi-Fi, flatscreen TVs, microwaves and mini-fridges.
Some include pool views, according to the hotel web site.
Employees of the hotel on Jamaican Court will sterilize and thoroughly clean every room requisitioned by the county, according to commission documents.
County health officials sought an isolation option for people experiencing homelessness to prevent an outbreak at a shelter.
The board decision occurred during a meeting held by videoconference, an option permitted by looser provisions in the state’s open-meetings law during the pandemic.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and his chief of staff, Roseann Harrington, recapped for the board the recent work of a panel of advisers appointed by the mayor to provide guidance for
how shuttered businesses should reopen to avoid a “second wave” of virus outbreaks.
Demings said health data shows about 93% of people hospitalized with the disease in Orange County have recovered.
Dr. Raul Pino, director of the state Health Department in Orange County, said increased testing hasn’t uncovered many new cases in recent days.
“We even went to the areas where we have the highest incidences of new cases and we are not finding it,” Pino said
Danny Banks, Orange County’s public safety director, said the county also has distributed thousands of masks and other personal-protection equipment, or PPE.
The county obtained a million masks and 200,000 bottles of hand-sanitizer from federal, state and private sources to help firstresponders, healthcare workers and others protect themselves from the highly contagious virus, blamed for 35 deaths in Orange County and illnesses that resulted in hospital admission for 289 people, he said.
Collectively, 292 organizations have received 468,000 surgical masks, about 350,000 sterile gloves and other protective gear from Orange County Health Services.
“We really feel like those PPE measures…may have had a significant impact on us curbing the spread of the virus in our community,” Banks said.
He expects the county will hand out more PPEs as businesses reopen in accordance with guidelines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Demings imposed a state-of-emergency March 13; an 11 pm to 5 am nightly curfew on March 20; and a stay-at-home order for “non-essential” business on March 24.
The latter mandate was superseded a few days later by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Safer At Home” executive order.
The governor eased some of his state restrictions on Monday, allowing stores and restaurants to reopen with indoor occupancy limited to 25% capacity.