Santa Barbara County Public Health officials on Tuesday unveiled widespread COVID-19 testing and long-term disease control efforts at health care facilities.
The province reported 78 new cases of COVID-19 and one new known virus-related death. There have been 7,074 total confirmed cases of coronavirus and 73 deaths, according to Public Health officials.
A Santa Barbara resident “more than 70 years old” died of COVID-19, officials said Tuesday. The person had underlying health conditions and was associated with a residential facility. Additional details about the case, including gender as to when the individual died, were not released.
“We are saddened by the loss of another Santa Barbara County resident,” Van Do-Reynoso Director of Public Health said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with all friends and family members as they mourn the passing of their loved one.”
COVID-19 testing will take place at long-term care facilities in the province “if an outbreak is determined,” Jan Koegler, emergency department manager of the province’s Public Health Department, said during Tuesday’s press release.
The sites include facilities for living in townhouses, facilities for assisted living, such as nursing homes and knowledgeable nursing homes and ‘others,’ “Koegler said.
“We are currently working on approximately 25 facilities per week that implement widespread testing in response to positive cases,” Koegler said. If one or more cases occur in staff as residents, then the facility must “then perform tests on all staff and residents.”
“As you can understand, this could mean very large numbers of tests,” Koegler said, adding that the Department of Public Health monitors the results and “supports the facilities each week to get the test done.”
This week, Koegler said, the Department of Public Health’s 11 facilities in the province are “supporting” volunteers from California Medical Corps Corps as U.S. paramedics from the medical response “to provide swabbing or coordination of tests.”
The COVID-19 test is usually performed using a nasal swab test.
In the past week, the Department of Public Health has reported five deaths of elderly residents in facilities in community housing on the South Coast, including two people from Santa Barbara and three in the Montecito, Summerland and Carpinteria area. The province will not identify which facilities have fatalities.
State and county databases show at least one death recently reported among residents at both Alto Lucero Transitional Care at 3880 Via Lucero in Santa Barbara and the Lompoc Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Care Center at 1428 W. North Ave. in Lompoc.
Alto Lucero reports 37 residents and 20 health care workers testing positive for their current outbreak, and the Lompoc facility reports 25 patients and 25 health care workers tesitng positive, according to the province.
In June and July, 12 residents died in a COVID-19 outbreak at the Country Oaks Care Center in Santa Maria.
Tuesday’s COVID-19 announcement came after state officials acknowledged a technological flaw in the data reporting system a few weeks ago that resulted in “lower numbers of positive and negative results distributed to counties,” Koegler said.
A disclaimer on the province’s online COVID-19 dashboard notes that “recently published data” “may likely be an underestimation of actual cases in the province” due to state-level computer problems.
“We expect additional cases to appear in the system in the coming days,” Koegler said. “We hope to have more information and more data by next week.”
Public health officials “do not know the extent or timing of the incidence of the cases or how this could affect our test positivity figures,” Koegler said, adding that more staff are testing positive for COVID-19 since the new coronavirus was introduced in the province.
Many businesses in the Santa Barbara County area reopened with modifications amid the coronavirus.
“Employers play a major role in preventing the spread of disease both in their workplace and in our community,” Koegler said.
Koegler said the first step is for employees to “tell their employer if they test positive or if someone in their household has tested positive, because then they are a household contact.”
The Department of Public Health does not require employees to “retest before returning to work,” Koegler said. “We generally do not issue letters that allow the person to return to work, but if they meet all the criteria for symptoms and it has been at least 10 days – for some people it will take longer – they can return to work. “
Local employers and business owners are urged to adhere to health and safety guidelines, and ensuring a safe environment for both employees and customers is critical to slowing the spread of COVID-19, Public Health officials said.
The Department of Public Health Department’s website provides resources for businesses, including details on how employers can help curb the spread of COVID-19, economic recovery and assistance programs. Click here for more information.
Public health officials reported that 1,411 coronavirus tests were performed on Tuesday.
The province’s seven-day rolling average community positivity rate dropped to 6.5 percent, down from 7.8 percent the previous day. The metric target of the state is below 8 percent.
To date, more than half of the province’s cases (5,226 people) are among people under 49 years of age.
The CEO and Chief Medical Officer at Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics provided insight into the local infrastructure for contact traces with its patient population.
“Tracing a contract is also a difficult issue because of these concerns about various things,” said Drs. Charles Fenzi. “One is your immigration status or immigration status of loved ones, so this may not be the right place to share this.”
SBNC is noticing a drop in the number of people on Medi-Cal, Fenzi said. More than 30 percent of SBNC patients do not have insurance, according to the organization.
“These are people who are eligible for Medi-Cal, but because of this public charge issue, they are afraid that they will get their loved one into trouble who does not have documentation papers by being on Medi-Cal,” said Fenzi . “That, they will give up their Medi-Cal.”
SBNC is trying to get a message: ‘You are part of our community. You need health care. ”
SBNC is essential for delivering quality integrated health care to the South Coast, Fenzi said. The organization consists of four medical clinics, two dental clinics, an integrated care clinic, a Bridge Clinic and health promotion services.
The organization’s officials realized that patients may be nervous about visits in person during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization is taking additional steps to reduce the potential risk of exposure to COVID-19.
“Young people had the idea that they would get it (COVID-19),” Fenzi said. “The older people we care for have been worried from the start, and that’s one of the reasons we could not see them.”
Of the new cases on Tuesday, 45 were in Santa Maria, 13 were in Santa Barbara, five were in Lompoc, four were in the unincorporated areas of Sisquoc, Casmalia, Garey, Cuyama, New Cuyama and Guadalupe, and three were in Orcutt . Two each were in Isla Vista and the unincorporated areas of the Goleta Valley. One new case was in Goleta.
Geographical locations were pending three cases.
The number of COVID-19 patients treated in local hospitals dropped to 76, down from 84 the previous day. Of those, 31 were in intensive care units, a number that had not changed from the previous 24 hours.
Of the community cases, Public Health officials said 5,675 people have fully recovered.
Click here for Noozhawk’s guide to understanding the Public Health Department’s COVID-19 section and daily status updates.
Click here to read stories in Noozhawk’s Coronavirus Crisis section.
– Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at . (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews en @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
| Department of Public Health of Santa Barbara County | Aug 11 |
Difference from previous day |
| Totally positive cases | 7,074 | + 78 |
| COVID-19-related deaths | 73 | + 1 |
| COVID-19 patients in hospitals in the province | 76 | – 8 |
| COVID-19 ICU patients | 31 | Not changed |
| Total test results | 90,288 | + 2,307 |
| Seven-day average test positivity rate | 6.5% | – 1.3% |
| New cases reported August 11th | Active cases per area | Total reported cases per area | COVID-19 deaths reported by area | |
| South County: Montecito, Summerland, Carpinteria | 0 | 2 | 168 | 5 |
| Santa Barbara and Mission Canyon | 13 | 54 | 928 | 7 |
| Goleta | 1 | 14 | 170 | 3 |
| Isla Vista | 2 | 20 | 96 | 0 |
| Western Goleta Valley and Gaviota | 2 | 9 | 125 | 1 |
| Santa Ynez Valley | 0 | 4 | 80 | 2 |
| Lompoc, Vandenberg Village, Mission Hills | 5 | 30 | 533 | 7 |
| Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex | 0 | 0 | 1,019 th most common | 3 |
| Santa Maria | 45 | 123 | 3,176 | 40 |
| Orcutt | 3 | 14 | 226 | 3 |
| North County: Guadalupe, Cuyama, New Cuyama, Garey, Casmalia, Sisquoc | 4 | 13 | 283 | 2 |
| Location pending | 3 | 22 | 270 | 0 |
| Santa Barbara County total | 78 | 310 | 7,074 | 73 |
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