Santa Barbara County responds to increase in county COVID-19 hospitalizations
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- COVID-19 is very much still in Santa Barbara County. According to the Santa Barbara County Public Health COVID-19 Dashboard, there were 46 new cases as of Tuesday. And there are 316 active cases in the County, or 71 cases per 100,000. County and state officials are responding to new data that shows our hospitalizations are also going up.
On Tuesday, during the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting, Santa Barbara County Public Health director, Van Do-Reynoso, stated Santa Barbara's COVID-19 hospitalizations are up 31.5%. That increase is over a three-day period. For Santa Barbara County to stay inside the California Department of Public Health's reopening guidelines, hospitalizations cannot exceed a 10% increase over a three-day period.
Do-Reynoso pointed to North County and Santa Maria as a cause of concern. She stated, using a study with numbers from May 27, a majority of COVID-19 cases are centered around Hispanics, 90%, and many are farmworkers, 20%.
Do-Reynoso stated a lack of physical distancing is a problem and spreads the virus. As of that May 27 study, 52% of people surveyed were able to practice physical distancing at work. Do-Reynoso says she plans to talk with the California agricultural commissioner about increasing farmworkers' safety.
According to Santa Barbara Public Health's COVID-19 Dashboard, the City of Santa Barbara has four times as many active cases of COVID-19, an increase of 36 people, more than before Memorial Day weekend, which was nine.
Memorial Day weekend was when State Street reopened as a pedestrian promenade. Since Memorial Day weekend Santa Barbara has loosened restrictions on businesses and has seen a bunch of civil rights protests and rallies.
In the last month Santa Barbara County has reported 641 news COVID-19 cases. That accounts for 30.3% of total cases since March 9. Santa Barbara City during that time has reported 68 new cases. Those cases account for almost half, 47.6%, of the total cases during the nearly three and a half months.
