The weekly average of new COVID-19-positive cases has been decreasing in Santa Barbara County, with an 11% drop, the Public Health Department said Friday.
However, that is an underreporting of cases since rapid antigen testing results are not reported to Public Health, officials noted.
There were 35 COVID-19-positive hospital patients in the county as of Friday, including one person in intensive care. That includes people who have been hospitalized for COVID-19-related reasons and people who have recently tested positive for COVID-19 and were hospitalized for unrelated reasons. That is slightly fewer than the 39 hospitalizations reported last Friday.
County officials have changed the way they report novel coronavirus-related data and moved to a new dashboard on Friday. Less localized information is available, including the ages and hometowns for people who have recently tested positive.
The California Department of Public Health has reported 699 deaths of Santa Barbara County residents and 95,214 positive cases as of this week. The state has consistently reported a few more deaths than the county has, apparently because of reporting delays.
Public Health officials said the region is still experiencing high community transmission of the virus, and that the test positivity rate increased to 14.5% this week.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s community transmission tracker lists Santa Barbara and neighboring San Luis Obispo County at medium transmission, according to its thresholds, with high transmission in Ventura County and many other California counties.
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
