AdventHealth Central Florida announced Thursday that its hospitals are back to Green Status.

That means they have returned to normal operations even as COVID-19 hospitalizations remain high.

AdventHealth Central Florida Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Neil Finkler says their hospitalizations from COVID-19 have dropped to about 850 patients.

That’s still high. It’s basically the same number as during the January surge. But he says AdventHealth has learned a lot since then and developed more flexibility.

At the end of July, their hospitals in seven counties went all the way to black status and deferred non-emergency surgeries due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. They had about 1,700 hospitalized just a few weeks ago.

“We are now business as usual,” Finkler said Thursday. “We understand that covid will be with us. And as I said we are going to need to understand how to care for covid patients while we also care for the other book of business that we need to care for our community.”

But he says no one should think this pandemic is over.