Santa Barbara County’s COVID-19 case rate increased by 400% in just one month, and the county is now facing “the pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Public Health officials declared at Tuesday’s COVID-19 briefing.
“I am saddened to report that Santa Barbara County is experiencing a dramatic increase in new COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. I am particularly saddened and upset because all of this is 100% preventable,” Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg said.
“We make it as easy and as accessible as possible (to get the vaccine), and still, way too many people are unwilling to get vaccinated. We now experience the pandemic of the unvaccinated, it is unnecessary and completely preventable.”
As of Monday, the number of active cases in Santa Barbara County increased by 70% to 303 from a two-week average of 179, and hospitalizations increased by 71% from a two-week average of 16, according to Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso.
The county reported 53 new cases on Tuesday.
Additionally, the county’s testing positivity rate is “rapidly increasing” and reached 5.3% on Monday, she added.
That means more than five out of every 100 people who get tested have a positive result.
“As you can see, our numbers are increasing and increasing in a very rapid manner in the span of two weeks,” Do-Reynoso said.
There are eight COVID-19 outbreaks across Santa Barbara County currently, including one at a homeless shelter in Santa Maria and one at a South County school with 23 people (primarily students) testing positive, according to Do-Reynoso.
As of Sunday, about 61% of the county’s eligible population (those over the age of 12) were fully vaccinated, and nearly 52% of the county’s entire population was fully vaccinated, according to the county’s Community Data Dashboard.
This leaves roughly 149,600 eligible county residents who are still unvaccinated, Do-Reynoso said.
“We have our work set out for us,” she added.
The new surge in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths is affecting the people who did not get vaccinated, and the county is “back at the brink of the purple tier” while experiencing widespread community transmission by unvaccinated people, Ansorg said.
Last week, roughly 20% of all new COVID-19 cases in Santa Barbara County were among fully vaccinated people, Ansorg said, adding that none of those patients ended up in the hospital and many experienced minimal symptoms or no symptoms at all.
About 80% of all new positive cases, and all new hospitalizations, were among unvaccinated people, he said.
The county’s Community Data Dashboard shows that the case rates among unvaccinated and vaccinated residents started to increase in July, as overall community transmission rose.
As of July 20, the daily case rate among vaccinated residents was 1.1 new cases per 100,000 people. The case rate among vaccinated residents stayed below 0.2 for the entire month of June and began to steadily increase in July, according to the data dashboard at sbcdashboard.org.
The daily case rate among unvaccinated residents was 7.6 per 100,000 people. At the beginning of July, it was around 2 per 100,000 people.
While the county is experiencing some “breakthrough” infections among people who are vaccinated, these “relatively rare cases are not responsible for spreading the virus to our communities,” Ansorg said.
“What we are seeing so far is that asymptomatic, vaccinated people do not seem to spread the virus,” he said.
The infection rate among vaccinated residents depends on how high the vaccination rate is in the entire population. For areas with very high vaccination rates, like Marin County where it is around 95%, cases occur more frequently in vaccinated people since they make up the majority of the population, but the cases tend to be mild and people do not end up in the hospital, Ansorg said.
Ansorg said unvaccinated people include people who are categorically against vaccination, people who are concerned about the safety of the vaccines, and people who are so busy they need help getting enough time off to get vaccinated.
As vaccinations have proved to be the most effective tool at preventing the spread of the virus, the Public Health Department will continue vaccine outreach efforts with its 23 community partners, including door-to-door canvassing, social media postings, network outreach, public service announcements, webinars, and incentives, Do-Reynoso said.
Partner organizations report that they are finding one-on-one conversations the most effective at convincing people to get the vaccine, she said.
With the start of the school year about three weeks away for many K-12 districts, the Public Health Department is “actively engaging” with all school districts, private schools, and superintendents to help get eligible students vaccinated as soon as possible, Ansorg said.
He encouraged parents of young children to get vaccinated themselves, and said the department would be willing to send mobile vaccine clinics to schools again if the need arises.
“If our numbers increase and we find ourselves next week in what used to be the deep purple tier, more than 46 cases a day on a consistent level, we would consider a mask mandate for indoors,” Do-Reynoso said Tuesday.
The county would prefer issuing advisories to mandates, and encourage employers to help workers get vaccinated, she added.
As case rates move into the “danger zone of deep purple (tier)” the county will have to have tough conversations, she said.
The state’s color-coded tier system for reopening was eliminated on June 15, but the purple tier indicated widespread community transmission and required counties to implement capacity limits on businesses. Restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and other institutions had to close indoor operations in the purple tier.
The county is not considering any business restrictions similar to the tier system, public health officials said Tuesday.
The California State University system announced on Tuesday that it will require all students, staff, and faculty to be fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus before returning to campus in the fall, and the University of California system announced a similar requirement a few weeks ago.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday released new mask guidance recommending that fully vaccinated people wear masks in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission — which includes Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
The CDC guidelines also recommend universal indoor masking at schools, regardless of vaccination status, for all students, staff and visitors.
Another recommendation added Tuesday is: “Fully vaccinated people who have a known exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 to be tested 3-5 days after exposure, and to wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days or until they receive a negative test result.”
Santa Barbara County Public Health officials encourage residents to avoid crowds, reduce travel to essential trips, physically distance from other people, wear masks in public indoor settings, and work together to convince friends, family, and loved ones to get vaccinated against the virus.
“We all have been behaving as the pandemic is over, that is absolutely not the case,” Ansorg said. “Everyone has to come together and take this seriously.”
“Instead of lamenting about public health recommendations and perceived restrictions, we need to take responsibility for ourselves, our neighbors, and our loved ones.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
