An additional 224 cases of COVID-19 were reported Saturday in Santa Barbara County, all but six of them inmates at the Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex.
Of the non-inmate cases, four were in Santa Maria and two in Lompoc, according to the county Public Health Department.
Six cases that previously were reported turned out not to be COVID-19, health officials said, which means the county’s total number of cases is 1,250.
That number appears to be low, due to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has been slow to share COVID-19 case information with county health officials.
The Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution’s COVID-19 positive cases among inmates continued to climb, with the Bureau of Prisons reporting 851 on Saturday, an increase from 792 a day earlier.
The numbers for the Lompoc federal penitentiary did not change with 32 positive inmate tests and 82 recovered.
Prison staff cases add up to 25 listed as positive and nine as recovered, but those numbers have not changed for several days, raising questions about whether the Bureau of Prisons has stopped reporting them.
Two Lompoc federal inmate deaths have been attributed to COVID-19, putting the total number of Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex cases at 967 for this outbreak that began in March.
According to a New York Times analysis, the Lompoc prison complex has the ninth-largest known cluster of coronavirus cases in the United States and the sixth-largest cluster inside a correctional facility.
County officials on Friday expressed frustration that the outbreak at the prison could inhibit the county’s ability to emerge from the statewide stay-at-home order.
They also complained that prison representatives have “consistently rebuffed” the Public Health Department staff’s efforts to assist in managing the outbreak.
Of the county’s new total cases, 36 were hospitalized, with 12 in intensive care units. That includes an unknown number of prison inmates; the county is refusing to disclose that information at the direction of the Bureau of Prisons.
Of the remaining cases, 279 were recovering at home and 469 have fully recovered — presumably including inmates.
Eleven people have died of COVID-19 in the county, and information was pending Saturday on 455 patients.
— 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.