Mayor Milissa Holland: Friend got COVID-19 at Publix

'You could be walking around feeling fine right now and not know that you indeed have COVID-19,' Holland said.

By Jonathan Simmons
| 3:30 p.m. July 16, 2020

Mayor Milissa Holland during a City Council meeting. Image from meeting livestream

Palm Coast Observer
News

Warning residents to take mask-wearing seriously, Palm Coast Mayor Milissa Holland said one of her friends recently took a COVID-19 test as part of a requirement to go on a trip, and the test came back positive — even though the friend had no symptoms.

The friend had tested “at a very high percentage,” Holland said.

“They asked her where she had been especially in the last three days, because to test that high you’d have to actually come in contact with someone that would have transmitted it in that time period,” Holland said. “The only place she had been, with her children in the last three days, was Publix. And she got it at Publix, and her two children tested positive. So: no symptoms, feeling fine. However they’re asymptomatic, walking around our community not knowing, and could have passed it to someone else. So it is a very serious issue. It is very real.”

Holland said she’d been to Publix herself over the weekend, and only noticed one person not wearing a mask.

“There was tremendous compliance with this, so thank you to our residents. ... But I share that story with you because that is what happened even as of last week. ... You could be walking around feeling fine right now and not know that you indeed have COVID-19.”