With the rise of COVID-19 after the holidays, the spread of the virus in Santa Barbara County is the highest of all California counties.
Van Do-Reynoso, director of Santa Barbara County Public Health, spoke Friday at Friday’s weekly press conference, which explained the reasoning behind the latest data and how the county is in a tight spot in the middle of the pandemic fury.
“The spread rate of COVID-19 is higher in Santa Barbara County than any other jurisdiction in California,” Do-Reynoso said. “These are sad numbers, extremely, very worrying.”
The county’s effective reproductive number, also called R-effective, is the average number of people to whom each infected person will transmit the virus and represents the rate of spread of COVID-19, according to the California Department of Public Health. The effective average number of R uses estimates from Covid Act Now, according to the state site.
COVID-19 will spread “exponentially” if the R-effective is greater than one, and the virus will spread “more slowly and cases will decrease” if the number is less than one, Do-Reynoso said. On Friday evening, the CDPH estimated the county’s number to be the highest in the state, at 1.27.
Do-Reynoso said that in the two weeks of the new year, the county experiences the consequences of meetings, travel, and mixing during the holidays.
“Since the holidays, the numbers have grown exponentially,” he said, noting that the county’s COVID-19 metrics are “extremely high”.
There have been 3,309 new cases in the last seven days in the county, with an average of 472.7 cases per day. In the previous seven days, the county recorded 2,561 new cases, an average of 365.9 cases a day.
There were 2,786 active cases across the county on Friday, and that number is “about three times as many active cases since before the holidays,” Do-Reynoso said.
The total number of hospitalizations and patients with COVID-19 intensive care in the county “has quadrupled since the holidays,” Do-Reynoso said, adding that the positivity of COVID-19 in the county is approximately 16%, a rate that doubles since the holidays. .
Santa Barbara County will begin vaccinating residents age 75 and older next Wednesday, but there is a limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine and people may not receive an immediate appointment.
There are more than 32,000 county residents aged 75 or older, depending on the county.
California officials extended eligibility to residents age 65 and older at this stage, but vaccinations will begin for them as soon as more vaccines are available. Click here for more information.
New COVID-19 cases
Public health officials on Friday reported an additional 364 cases of COVID-19 and five new deaths.
To date, the county’s total number of positive COVID-19 cases is 23,538 and related deaths are 228.
Four of the people who died were over 70 and one was between 50 and 69, according to the Department of Public Health.
Three had underlying medical conditions and one death was associated with an outbreak at a congregated facility. Two resided in Santa Maria, two lived in Lompoc and the communities of Mission Hills and Vandenberg Village, and one resided in Orcutt. County officials group some geographic areas into COVID-19 county daily reports.
There were 192 confirmed COVID-19 patients treated at local hospitals, a decrease from the 197 of the previous day. Of these, 52 were in the intensive care unit, one less than the day before. There were 89 staffed adult ICU beds and more than 58% of COVID-19 patients occupied, according to the county’s online data board.
UCI availability in the Southern California multi-county region stood at 0% on Friday. The adjusted availability of ICUs in Santa Barbara County increased slightly to 1.3%.
Local hospitals are caring for an “increasing number of people who are ill enough to require hospital care,” Dr. Henning Ansorg, county public health officer. “We anticipate that this trend is likely to last in February.”
Most COVID-19 hospitalizations are among Santa Barbara County residents between the ages of 40 and 50, Ansorg said Friday.
“Even young and otherwise healthy people can suffer from serious illnesses of this virus,” Ansorg said.
Sue Andersen, president / CEO of Marian Regional Medical Center, said the hospital is experiencing an increase in COVID-19 “higher than we’ve seen so far.”
Marian enacted her overload plans and uses extra space for beds “we have prepared just for this kind of situation,” Andersen said.
Of Friday’s new cases, Santa Barbara had 120, Santa Maria had 85, and both Lompoc and the Montecito-Summerland-Carpinteria area reported 31. There were 19 in Goleta, 16 in the Santa Ynez Valley, and 15 in the unincorporated area of Goleta Vall i Gaviota. Ten of each were reported in Orcutt and the unincorporated areas of North and Guadeloupe County. Four were in Isla Vista and there were 23 pending cases of geographical location.
Twenty-eight additional inmates and nine additional staff from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department tested positive for COVID-19 this week, according to Raquel Zick, a sheriff’s spokeswoman. This brings the total number of inmates in the main prison who have tested positive to 154, and a total of 97 sheriff employees have tested positive for COVID-19 so far.
“Five of the inmates tested positive during intake control and two have been released from custody,” Zick said. “The remaining 23 are part of an outbreak that is currently being managed in one of the main prison housing units.”
Zick said inmates in the associated housing areas were examined and offered COVID-19 testing.
“All positive COVID-19 inmates are housed in negative pressure areas or housed separately from the general population,” he said. “All affected housing areas are being quarantined and closely monitored by health personnel.”
There are 49 inmates with an active case of COVID-19 in the main prison, Zick said Friday.
Meanwhile, a staff member at the Santa Maria Juvenile Hall of the parole department and a member of the Los Prietos boys camp tested positive for COVID-19, according to Karyn Milligan, a public information officer in the parole department. .
A young man also tested positive when he booked at SMJH, Milligan said Friday. The young man “experiences minor symptoms” and “is housed in a medical observation unit specifically used for COVID-19 positive youth.”
After conducting efforts to track contacts with viruses, Milligan said, identified personnel were tested as a precaution and their results were negative for COVID-19.
Milligan said an increase in positive cases during the reservation demonstrates the spread of COVID-19 in the community.
“It should be noted that the last four young people enrolled in SMJH have tested positive for COVID-19,” Milligan said. “The youth are not connected in any way, they come from different areas of the county, including the northern, southern and mid-county regions.”
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