TAMPA (WFLA) — At Pediatric Health Care Alliance offices in the Bay area, there is a new policy to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Parents are being asked to keep their children outside until they can be seen by a nurse if they have a cough and fever.

“It’s a new policy,” Doctor Cynthia Wood White said. “It’s recommended by the CDC and we just started it this morning actually. So what we are doing to try our best from having the virus, or any of the viruses in general from getting transmitted, is to use the patient’s car as their waiting room.”

In Hillsborough County one woman has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus and her sister is presumed to have the virus after the first patient traveled to Italy.

Dr. Wood White says it’s a virus that can easily be spread and they are being proactive to prevent the spread of their virus between patients in the waiting room.

“So when they call, if their child has a fever, we’re having them check in on the phone when they get here and then our nurse will go and get them from outside and bring the child directly into the exam room,” Wood White said.

All staff at the office are now washing their hands with soap and water more frequently.

The Doctor says treatment of the coronavirus will also be very similar to treatment for the Flu for most patients.

“It’s all supportive care, unless you develop pneumonia and respiratory difficulty and then a lot of these people are in the hospital, not only on IV medicine, but on ventilators, just to help them to breath,” Wood White said.

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