Santa Barbara County Public Health officials urging people to continue to get tested for COVID-19 even if fully-vaccinated
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — California’s and Santa Barbara County’s COVID-19 cases are dropping. According to Santa Barbara County Public Health data, on January 15 there were 364 new cases in Santa Barbara County and 2,786 active cases. On March 12 there were 54 new cases in the county and 255 active cases. On May 11 there were 8 new cases and 81 active cases.
California has seen a similar drop in cases with a 7-day COVID-19 positivity rate of 1.0% and the second-lowest new cases per capita in the country.
However, even with low numbers, health officials said getting tested is still critical to keeping our numbers low.
Dr. David Fisk is an infectious disease specialist at Cottage Hospital and Sansum Clinics. He said, "Without [testing] we don't know what's happening. If you think back to the beginning of this you know of March of last year in the United States we had the disease spreading and we had no idea of telling where it was and where it wasn't because we didn't have testing."
Santa Barbara County Public Health’s Emergency Medical Services coordinator, Matt Higgs, added, "Without the continued testing we have the risk of having cases spread throughout the community and dropping us back into the [more restrictive] tier."
To signup for a free COVID-19 test visit the LHI website. The Santa Barbara County Public Health testing bus is currently at Palm Park Parking Lot at 236 East Cabrillo Boulevard.