Santa Barbara County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office to ask for funding and resources to address the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The county has a population under 500,000 people and did not receive federal aid under the CARES Act. Budget staff have projected $30 million in revenue losses this year, and another $7 million to $10 million in COVID-19 response costs.
“Our county’s ability to successfully work in alignment with your framework, and to alleviate the severe economic and social consequences that will worsen as each month goes by, are dependent on new resources from the state and federal government,” the letter concludes.
Santa Barbara County wants “to be ready and aggressive in opening our economy,” County Executive Officer Mona Miyasato said.
California counties that recently loosened restrictions are amending their own orders, which in many cases were more restrictive than the statewide stay-at-home order, she noted.
Assistant County Executive Officer Nancy Anderson said the county will spend the next four to six weeks developing a plan for economic reopening that aligns with state and federal guidance.
The county is forming a stakeholder team, contracting with the REACH/Hourglass Project group of San Luis Obispo County, and will present a phased reopening to the public health director and Board of Supervisors for approval, Anderson said.
County Counsel Michael Ghizzoni said there is a statewide emergency and state public health emergency in effect, as well as the county’s local emergency and public health emergency declared by the public health officer.
“So in this case the board has powers, the local public health officer has powers, but they’re both subordinate to the powers coming from the state in this declared emergency,” Ghizzoni said.
“We’re not advocating for defying the state order, we have to ready ourselves for when the state order is modified or lifted,” First District Supervisor Das Williams said.
The letter, based on comments from several supervisors, should “let the governor know that our ability to sustain this is very much dependent on state aid, not just to us but to the many people who are slipping into poverty,” he said.
Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso presented demographic information about Santa Barbara County’s positive cases, which supervisors and local media have requested for weeks.
The prison-related cases represent about 30 percent of all county confirmed cases, she said, and employees are spread throughout the county.
“We are actually well below what we were projecting,” Do-Reynoso said, referring to modeling she presented to the board two weeks ago.
“We’re seeing a downward trend but there is variability day to day. The goal is to see some consistency in the downward trend.”
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said the county has “done what we thought we were going to do” by flattening the curve of new cases and hospitalizations, and asked what the Public Health Department is looking for to signal success in social distancing and other guidelines.
Do-Reynoso explained that the metric that matters is having the number of new cases and hospitalizations decline consistently over a 14-day period.
“That is the benchmark, if you will, other jurisdictions have used in order to consider elective procedures, in order to clarify some of the recreational activities that can take place,” she said.
Do-Reynoso said the county has demographic information for 307 of its 416 confirmed cases. Inmates at the Lompoc federal correctional complex and 221 non-inmates who tested positive were interviewed.
The numbers show Hispanics are overrepresented in positive COVID-19 cases, she said, representing 61 percent of the 221 confirmed cases. Hispanics represent 53 percent of the 307 cases for which the county has demographic information, while they represent 48 percent of the county population.
The interviewers (employees from the Public Health Department and Public Defender’s Office) also asked about health insurance, household size, household income, education level and their knowledge of the coronavirus and safety guidelines.
It’s important to note that the county is prioritizing testing for people who are severely ill, who live in congregate settings (jails, shelters, nursing homes), or are healthcare workers or first responders, which will influence the demographic data.
The vast majority of respondents have health insurance, and have a healthcare provider they can see.
Fourteen percent of respondents live in households with six or more people, 53 percent live in households of three to five people, and 31 percent live in households of two or fewer people.
One concern is that in self-reported knowledge of social distancing guidelines, 58 percent of respondents said they did not understand it or were not able to practice it, Do-Reynoso said.
Not everyone could social distance at home, and when asked about work, 39 percent of people said they could practice social distancing at work, while 36 percent said they could not at work.
Do-Reynoso said the county needs more outreach to Spanish-speaking communities, enrollment efforts for uninsured residents, and continued messaging about physical distancing and handwashing.
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— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
