Santa Barbara County reported 847 new COVID-19 cases over the three-day New Year’s weekend, averaging 282.3 daily new cases during the period.
On Friday, the first day of 2021, the county reported 331 new coronavirus cases. The county reported an additional 226 cases Saturday and 290 on Sunday.
There has been an average of 285 new cases per day over the last seven days, according to the county’s Community Data Dashboard. To advance out of California’s most-restrictive purple tier of the four-level COVID-19 framework and into the slightly less restrictive red tier, the county must average fewer than 32 new cases per day.
The county again set a record for the most daily active cases, with 1,609 cases still considered infectious as of Sunday, according to the dashboard. The number of active cases jumped more than 150 since Thursday when the county Public Health Department reported 1,456 active infections.
There have been a total of 18,230 confirmed positive cases in the county since the coronavirus contagion was detected locally in March. The county’s cumulative COVID-19 death toll remains at 160.
Hospitalizations peaked on New Year’s Day with 141 COVID-19 patients in local hospitals. Since then, hospitalization numbers have dropped slightly but still remain high with 136 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Sunday. Intensive-care unit numbers peaked Sunday, with 39 COVID patients requiring ICU treatment.
Santa Barbara County reported a 24.7 percent ICU availability as of Sunday, up from the 19.7 percent on Saturday. However, the county’s adjusted ICU availability, using the methodology defined by the California Department of Public Health, is 1.4 percent.
COVID-19 patients account for 39 out of the 57 staffed ICU beds available in the county, according to the data dashboard.
Regardless of Santa Barbara County’s ICU capacity, Gov. Gavin Newsom placed the county under a stay-at-home order on Dec. 7 after he declared it to be part of the Southern California region, which has reported a persistent 0 percent ICU availability.
For the region to be released from the order, ICU capacity must be at or above 15 percent. On Dec. 29, Newsom extended the order for at least another three weeks.
— 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.
