Santa Barbara County officials on Sunday reported 50 new COVID-19 cases, according to the Public Health Department.
The county’s cumulative number of confirmed cases stood at 33,704 and the death toll remained at 441, the online coronavirus status report released Sunday said.
In its daily update, the Public Health Department said 21 confirmed COVID-19 patients were being treated in local hospitals, including four people being treated in intensive-care units.
The county’s seven-day community test positivity rate is 2.7 percent, which puts it in the “moderate” orange tier under California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy restriction levels.
The health equity metric is 5.1 percent, which also meets the orange tier criteria.
However, the county’s latest adjusted case rate does not satisfy the orange tier level.
The county in the second most-restrictive “substantial” red tier because its adjusted case rate stands at 6.8 cases per day per 100,000 residents.
The number must get to 5.9 daily new cases or lower for the county to move down to the next tier.
“It’s important to take the size of a community into account when thinking about cases,” the Public Health website said. “For this reason, California is focusing on the case rate per 100,000 residents.”
Santa Barbara County is home to about 450,000 residents, according to the department.
On April 6, the state reached its goal of administering 4 million COVID-19 vaccinations in disproportionately affected communities and adjusted the case rate threshold for purple and red tiers, the Public Health website noted.
The county has remained in the red tier of the COVID-19 reopening framework since March 16, public health officials said.
According to the state, California’s 58 counties “must remain in a tier for at least three weeks before moving to a less restrictive tier. Counties must meet the next tier’s criteria for two consecutive weeks to move to a less restrictive tier.”
Of the positive COVID-19 cases reported Sunday, 18 were in the Santa Maria Valley, nine in the Goleta Valley, eight in the Lompoc Valley, six in the Santa Ynez Valley, five in Santa Barbara and three in Isla Vista.
Geographic locations had not been released for one new case.
No new cases were reported in the Lompoc Federal Prison Complex or the Montecito-Summerland-Carpinteria area Sunday, according to the county.
There were more than 370 new positive COVID-19 cases reported in the past seven days across the county, for an average of about 53 cases per day. In the previous seven days, the county tallied about 268 new cases, which is an average of 38.3 cases per day.
The county reported more than 180 residents countywide were considered still infectious with COVID-19 as of Sunday.
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— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.