Florida officials, Orange County Mayor dispute over COVID-19 testing

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - A debate about COVID-19 testing availability is underway between Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and state health officials.

Earlier this week, Orange County officials said that if the state would agree to open a state testing site like the one that was operated at the Orange County Convention Center, that it would alleviate the demand on locally run sites. These have been regularly closing early because of capacity being reached.

RELATED: Orange County opening new COVID-19 testing site to help with ongoing surge

State officials are pushing back though, saying that they have no intention of opening a new site and that people can still make appointments at CVS and Walgreens on their websites.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings also said that the state is not providing assistance at local testing sites.

"This isn’t a problem unique to local governments. This should have been addressed both by the federal government and the state government and right now, the missing middle here in the state of Florida in this fight — the current circumstances that we’re dealing with — is the state," Mayor Demings said.

RELATED: Study shows expected peak of Florida's latest COVID-19 surge

A new study suggests that the latest COVID-19 surge in Florida will peak in February.

The study, published by the University of Florida, shows that what is most likely to happen is that the Omicron wave will grow slowly through December, rapidly in January, and then peak in February.

It also suggests that the Omicron variant has a high transmission advantage and moderate immune escape, but overall, low disease severity.

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