Santa Barbara County Public Health officials reported 29 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, and 190 cases were still considered infectious throughout the county.
There have been 260 new cases reported in Santa Barbara County during the past week, averaging a little more than 37 new cases per day. That is nearly seven more cases than the week before, when the county was averaging 30.7 new cases per day.
The county reported that COVID-19 hospitalizations fell from 26 Friday to 15 on Saturday, with just three patients reported in intensive care units.
That would be the lowest number of COVID-19 ICU patients since Nov. 21, 2020, according to Noozhawk’s data tracking.
COVID-19 patients occupy only 3.9% of the county’s available staffed ICU beds. On Friday, COVID-19 patients occupied 13.2% of the county’s available ICU beds.
There were no new COVID-19-related deaths reported on Saturday, and the county’s cumulative death toll remained at 440.
Of Saturday’s new cases, 10 were from Santa Barbara and six were from the Goleta Valley. The Lompoc Valley reported four new cases, the Santa Maria Valley and Isla Vista each tallied three, and the Montecito-Summerland-Carpinteria area logged two. One case was pending a geographic location.
There have been 33,297 confirmed cases since the pandemic began.
— 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.