FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – MUSC Health will screen visitors at all hospital entry points amid the coronavirus threat, officials announced Thursday.

“MUSC Health Florence and Marion Medical Centers are discouraging visits by people who do not have to be on site, especially people who were recently in an area where there’s been a high level of transmission of the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19,” a release from MUSC Health says.

“Effective today, MUSC will screen all visitors at points of entry to the hospital. Specifically, this will be a symptom-based screen where we will ask visitors if they’ve experienced fever, cough or shortness of breath in the previous 48 hours,” the release also says. ” For any visitor who is well and hasn’t experienced any of these symptoms, they’ll be able to visit our hospital as they normally would.”

“For visitors who are experiencing these symptoms, we will kindly ask them not to visit MUSC Health and to leave and head back home and recover there,” adds the release. “MUSC Health will work with symptomatic visitors with extenuating circumstances such as having a gravely ill loved one, by asking them to wear a mask throughout their time in the hospital. Children under 12 and adults age 80 and older are strongly discouraged, but not prohibited, from visiting patients.”

MUSC Health is offering free virtual urgent care visits online at www.musc.care for anyone experience coronavirus-like symptoms and who are residents of SC. The promo code of COVID19 can be used at checkout.

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