Four minors being held at Juvenile Hall in Santa Maria have tested possible for COVID-19, the Santa Barbara County Probation Department announced on Friday.
One staff member also has tested positive, Chief Probation Officer Tanja Heitman said in a press release.
The Probation Department developed a response plan for coronavirus, “and immediately implemented the protocols to transfer youth with positive tests to a designated medical living unit within the facility.”
There were 28 minors incarcerated at the facility on California Boulevard on Friday, Heitman said.
Probation officials are proceeding with COVID-19 testing for all youths and staff, Heitman said, and are conducting “enhanced monitoring and screening by medical staff for signs of illness.”
“The Probation Department continues to be focused on and responsive to the mental and physical well-being of youth in this challenging and stressful situation, and are taking steps to ensure their wellness,” Heitman said. “The Department is continuing to monitor the situation daily and will make decisions based on best practices in health and safety standards for the youth under their care, their officers, and the community.”
An additional 124 cases of COVID-19 were reported in Santa Barbara County on Friday by the state Department of Public Health. (The county does not plan to provide updates over the holiday weekend.)
The county reported 70 COVID-19 patients in local hospitals (64 confirmed and six suspected), including 25 in intensive care units (24 confirmed and one suspected).
The state does not provide geographic or demographic information for the new cases it reports.
On Thursday, the county reported 310 active cases of COVID-19, and the state put the county’s total on Friday at 3,385 cases.
There have been 31 coronavirus deaths reported in the county, including one announced Wednesday with no details.
The Public Health Department has reported 10 deaths among residents of the Country Oaks Care Center in Santa Maria, which is the deadliest COVID-19 outbreak in the county.
The announcement of the outbreak at Juvenile Hall comes two days after the Sheriff’s Department reported new cases among staff and inmates at the County Main Jail near Santa Barbara.
Sheriff Bill Brown said testing all Main Jail inmates and staff has been hampered by “a shortage of test kits,” adding that the department had tested 340 staff members and 321 inmates as of Thursday.
“As of this afternoon, we received a sufficient supply to be able to test all inmates,” he said.
The first inmate in a general housing unit to test positive was reported June 19.
There were 578 people incarcerated at the Main Jail, and of the people tested, four have tested positive, one was inconclusive and retested, and 139 people had negative results, Brown said.
Wellpath, the jail’s contracted provider of in-jail medical and mental health services, is conducting COVID-19 tests for staff and inmates, but staff members can also be tested at community tests sites and other locations in the county.
So far, 21 custody staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, including one custody deputy who worked two shifts at the Psychiatric Health Facility after a Wellpath employee mistakenly told him his test result was negative.
Over the course of 10 days, he reported COVID-19 symptoms, was tested, received the (wrong) negative results, became asymptomatic, and returned to work.
The mistake was discovered on Wednesday, and he was sent home early from his shift and told to self-isolate, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
Public Health officials have been concerned about increasing test positivity, which means more of the people being tested are getting positive results.
The weekly positivity rate in the county has increased to 8.5 percent, compared to 5.2 percent two weeks ago.
Local healthcare providers are seeing the same trend, according to Sansum Clinic and Cottage Health, which have been testing patients for months.
The positivity rate of COVID-19 tests conducted at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital has increased exponentially in recent weeks, with about one in 10 tests now coming back positive, said Dr. David Fisk, an infectious disease physician at Cottage and Sansum Clinic.
In addition to testing people who come into the emergency department, the hospital now tests everyone being admitted to the hospital, even for elective procedures.
“It’s clear the virus is running rampant in our community right now,” Fisk said Thursday.
“This trend is purely due to the lack of physically and socially distancing that we saw a few months ago.”
Fisk said Cottage Health has seen an increase of ill, symptomatic patients and asymptomatic people who test positive.
Increasing novel coronavirus testing is a way to slow the spread of the virus, as well as social distancing, wearing face coverings and handwashing, he said.
“We have known measures that can slow the spread, and the practices we held earlier this year definitely did that,” he said.
Noozhawk Managing Editor Giana Magnoli and Staff Writer Jade Martinez-Pogue contributed to this report.
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.