San Luis Obispo County reports the deaths of eight more people who tested positive for COVID-19.
Health officials say the patients were between 60 and 100 years old.
San Luis Obispo County has had 82 deaths attributed to COVID-19.
The county also added a record 576 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the county’s total to 10,178 confirmed cases on Dec. 30.
San Luis Obispo County public health officials attribute, in part, the high number of new cases to an accumulation of cases in the state database. On Tuesday, county health officials said a change in the way the state assigns suspicious cases to a county was causing a delay in local reporting.
Between Friday and Tuesday, SLO County reported only 131 new cases of COVID-19, while the state’s COVID-19 website shows 883 new cases in the county over the same time period.
County health officials said they were reviewing these cases and expected the total number of confirmed cases in the county to exceed 10,000 this week.
Currently, 58 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in San Luis Obispo County, including 11 patients who are in the ICU. Another 2,187 people are recovering at home and health officials say 7,837 people have recovered.
According to the California State Online COVID-19 Dashboard, there are currently 19 beds available in the ICU in San Luis Obispo County.
Breakdown of cases by location:
- Paso Robles – 2,264
- San Luis Obispo – 2,152
- Atascadero – 897
- Rierol Gran – 733
- California Male Colony (inmates): 726
- Nipomo – 695
- Grover Beach – 414
- Ocean – 353
- Templeton – 308
- Sant Miquel – 286
- Cal Poly (campus residents) – 256
- The Bears – 208
- Morro Bay – 201
- Pismo Beach – 155
- Atascadero State Hospital (patients) – 124
- Shandon – 89
- Santa Margarida – 84
- Cambria – 72
- Creston – 43
- Cayucos – 43
- Avila Beach – 16
- San Simeó – 8
The location of an additional 37 cases is being investigated and another 14 are shown as “other,” which includes communities with fewer than five cases. The Department of Public Health does not identify these locations.
Currently, community COVID-19 test sites are open to the public in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Morro Bay, Grover Beach and Nipomo.
Appointment required at all locations. Click here to make an appointment.
For more information on the county’s COVID-19 response, visit readyslo.org.