Concerns over COVID-19 testing availability raised in Orange County as in-person instruction looms

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — It’s almost time for many Orange County students to return to face-to-face learning as they return to the classroom on Friday.

Orange County Public Schools Chairwoman Teresa Jacobs said rapid COVID-19 testing would make a huge difference in keeping students and teachers safer at school, but said Orange County has a resource issue that’s not just impacting the schools, but the community.

The state of Florida has rolled out widespread testing faster than some places, but the number of people getting tested here, and people testing positive, created huge backlogs for many labs.

"The sooner we can identify a positive case, the sooner we can keep it from spreading and that is extremely important to us," Jacobs said.

In July, the state was averaging a seven-to-nine-day turnaround on test results, but Eyewitness News found it was taking up to two weeks for some.

Since the beginning of August, fewer people have been getting tested and its giving labs the time to catch up.

But Jacobs said that’s not fast enough.

"What could make our schools safer? Testing, rapid testing. Not just for our schools but our entire community," she said.

Jacobs said she’s concerned that some counties in Florida have the ability to do rapid tests for students and teachers but Orange County does not.

“Those resources have to be equitably distributed. So that all children, regardless of which county you’re in, has the same access to those resources,” she said. “I’m no longer mayor of Orange County, so I can’t tell you exactly what the resource allocation is, but I can tell you for years Orange County health department was underfunded relative to our population than most others.”

Cox Media Group