COVID-19 cases reported in Santa Barbara County over the past week were about 50% more than the previous week, but the number of novel coronavirus patients being treated in local hospital has remained very low.
As of Friday, there were new 330 cases reported over the last seven days, compared to 218 cases the previous week.
Not included in that tally are 260 cases reported on Tuesday that actually occurred prior to April, according to the county Department of Public Health.
For the second day in a row on Friday, there were only four COVID-19-positive patients in local hospitals, and none being treated in intensive-care units.
One new COVID-19-related fatality was reported on Friday, bringing the county’s pandemic death toll to 680 people.
The person who died was a Lompoc Valley resident, 70+ years old, with underlying health conditions. The death was not associated with a congregate-care site.
Of the 223 new cases reported since Noozhawk’s last update story on Monday, 26 were on Tuesday, 68 on Wednesday, 44 on Thursday, and 85 on Friday.
Isla Vista has accounted for the largest number of those cases, presumably as UCSB students and staff returned to campus from spring break activities.
Santa Maria and the Santa Barbara area also saw a larger number of cases.
There were 291 “active” or still-infectious cases of COVID-19 in the county on Friday, while the county’s seven-day community test positivity rate, which has a four-day lag, climbed slightly to 2.1%.
To date, the county has reported 86,227 COVID-19 cases, of which 85,257, or 98.8%, have recovered.
— 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.