7960940069?profile=originalA National Guardsman provides instructions as cars pull into the drive-thru testing site at the South County Civic Center on April 7. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett

A total of 250 patients are scheduled to be tested for COVID-19 today, April 8, at the South County Civic Center, and 146 had appointments for Thursday, April 9, Palm Beach County and the Cleveland Clinic said.

During the first day of drive-thru testing at the South County center on Tuesday, April 7, 138 people were tested, Cleveland Clinic said. Appointments can be made at 561-804-0250.

The South County center, at 16700 Jog Road west of Delray Beach, screened 3,500 calls on Monday, April 6, its first day of operation. It started the week with 2,000 test kits, officials said.
Meanwhile, the screening hotline for the county's test site in West Palm Beach shut down Tuesday morning after scheduling more than 600 appointments for Thursday. "The hotline is not accepting calls and will reopen once additional test kits are received," the county posted on its website. 
"We only have two weapons to fight this virus – social distancing and testing," Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the Florida Department of Health-Palm Beach County, said at a county briefing Tuesday.
 
Palm Beach County's rate for positive cases is 18 percent and the state rate is 10 percent. Alonso said the reason the county's rate is higher is because it is only testing symptomatic people. Also, its death rate leads the state because its over-65 population is 23.9 percent, she said. 
Boca Raton City Council member Andy Thomson and County Commissioner Robert Weinroth held a "Coronavirus Community Forum" on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon.
"We are really, I'm hoping, very close to the apex of this curve that we have in front of us. And if we can see it start to flatten out and we can see the number of patients start to go down, that's going to be good. It's going to allow us to allow people to get out," Weinroth said.
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