[Editor’s note: Noozhawk’s weekly COVID-19 email newsletter is delivered to subscribers on Wednesdays. You can sign up here. We are republishing the newsletters on the website so more readers have access to them.]

Welcome to Noozhawk’s Weekly COVID-19 Briefing.

I’m Noozhawk staff writer Serena Guentz with the latest COVID-19 news in Santa Barbara County.

This newsletter is a way for Noozhawk readers to get important updates in one place.

It is emailed out every Wednesday, for free, to everyone who subscribes.

Here’s What We Know 

» Santa Barbara County remains in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s low COVID-19 community level.

» According to the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department weekly summary for Oct. 28 through Nov. 3, the weekly average of reported PCR-confirmed COVID-19 cases declined by 11.1% over the previous seven days. Public Health officials report a daily average of 22 new cases.

» As of Monday, there were 20 coronavirus-positive individuals hospitalized in the county, with two of them being treated in intensive-care units. Some of these patients were admitted for something other than COVID-19 and tested positive when they were hospitalized.

» Pfizer reported last week that the bivalent booster vaccines are up to 13.2 times as effective in protecting against the Omicron variant of COVID-19 as the original booster doses.

» Flu and other viruses are circulating in the community, in addition to COVID-19, and they can cause similar symptoms. If you have respiratory virus symptoms, it’s important to get tested for COVID-19, local health providers say.

COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

According to the California Department of Public Health, more than 95% of Santa Barbara County residents age 65 and older have completed the primary series of the COVID-19 vaccine, followed by 84.3% of individuals between the ages of 50 and 64.

Children under the age of 5 still have the lowest vaccination rate in the county, with just 3% of them being fully vaccinated.

About 32% of individuals age 5 through 11 have been vaccinated in the county and 63.2% of residents age 12 through 17 have completed the primary vaccine series. About 72.2% of county residents age 18 through 49 have completed the primary vaccine series and are fully vaccinated.

As of Nov. 4, Santa Barbara County providers have administered a total of 917,440 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

About 69.7% of all county residents have completed the primary vaccine series, while 58.3% have received the primary vaccine series and booster doses, and 14.2% have also received the bivalent booster vaccine.

Got Questions?

Readers have sent us dozens of questions about pandemic-related issues. Please send yours to news@noozhawk.com and we’ll try to include them in future newsletters and Noozhawk Q&As.

Reader Resources

» Find a COVID-19 vaccine provider near you on the Vaccine Finder search function of https://www.vaccines.gov/search/. You can search for providers by location and by specific vaccine available (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson). You can also find providers on the county website, publichealthsbc.org/vaccine, or at myturn.ca.gov. Some facilities offer walk-ups as well as appointments.

» Text your ZIP code to GETVAX (438829) for a list of vaccine providers in English, or text your ZIP code to VACUNA (822862) for a list in Spanish. 

» There are free COVID-19 testing facilities around the county.

» Find more local pandemic-related information on the Public Health Department website.

» Click here for Noozhawk’s complete Coronavirus Crisis coverage.

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— Noozhawk staff writer Serena Guentz can be reached at sguentz@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.