The COVID-19 pandemic showed no signs of slowing in Santa Barbara County on Saturday as public health officials reported an additional 612 positive cases and three new deaths.
All three residents who died were in the 70-plus age group, and none of the deaths was associated with outbreaks at congregate facilities in the county, according to the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department’s COVID-19 data dashboard. Two individuals had underlying health conditions and lived in Santa Maria, and an individual was from the Santa Barbara/unincorporated area of Mission Canyon.
To date, 24,149 positive cases have been reported in the county since its first local case in March, the Public Health Department said.
There have been 231 COVID-19-related deaths reported countywide since April. Santa Barbara County reported its first COVID-19 death on April 1.
In January alone so far, more than 70 county residents have died from COVID-19.
There were 89 staffed adult ICU beds in use, and 53.9% of those were occupied by COVID-19 patients, according to the county’s online data dashboard.
The ICU availability in the multicounty Southern California region remained at 0% on Saturday. Santa Barbara County’s adjusted ICU availability stood at 1.3%. California’s stay-at-home order is triggered when the ICU availability drops lower than 15% in a region.
Of Saturday’s new cases, Santa Maria had 192, Santa Barbara logged 113, Lompoc recorded 51, the Montecito-Summerland-Carpinteria area reported 34, Orcutt had 36, Goleta tallied 32, and the unincorporated area of the Goleta Valley and Gaviota recorded 27. There were 24 in the Santa Ynez Valley, 23 in the unincorporated areas of North County and seven in Isla Vista. Seventy-three were pending geographic location.
There were 196 confirmed COVID-19 patients being treated in local hospitals, an increase from 192 the previous day. Of those, 48 residents were in intensive-care units — four fewer than the previous day.
There are 2,811 cases still considered infectious in Santa Barbara County, according to the Public Health Department.
A total of 371,873 COVID-19 tests have been administered in Santa Barbara County, according to Saturday’s daily status report. There were more than 3,990 COVID-19 tests reported in the county Saturday.
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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.