Santa Barbara County Public Health officials on Tuesday reported 3,903 cases of the novel coronavirus and five additional deaths since Friday.
The Public Health Department does not report COVID-19 data on the weekends or holidays, so all of the information since Friday was reported on Tuesday.
The new deaths were all reported on Tuesday and were among people who had underlying medical conditions.
Three of those who died were over the age of 70, one was between the ages of 30 and 49, and one was between the ages of 50 and 69.
Four of the people lived in Santa Maria and one was from the unincorporated area of the Goleta Valley.
The county’s cumulative death toll rose to 580.
Of the new cases, 1,414 were reported on Saturday, 1,102 on Sunday, 625 on Monday, and 762 on Tuesday.
There were 1,302 cases reported in the Santa Maria Valley and 723 in the Santa Barbara area. The Lompoc Valley reported 670 cases, the Goleta Valley added 537, Isla Vista logged 249, the Santa Ynez Valley tallied 152, the Montecito-Summerland-Carpinteria area reported 118, and the Lompoc Federal Prison added three.
There were 149 cases still pending geographic locations.
The Sheriff’s Department also reported on Tuesday that three additional County Jail inmates have tested positive in an outbreak that began on Dec. 8.
There have been 221 positive cases in the outbreak, with 191 people having since recovered according to sheriff’s spokeswoman Raquel Zick.
The number of cases still considered "active" fluctuated over the long Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, going from 5,969 on Saturday to 7,068 on Sunday before dropping to 5,832 on Monday and increasing to 6,581 on Tuesday.
The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized increased significantly — from 103 on Friday to 135 on Tuesday. There were 12 coronavirus patients being treated in intensive-care units on Tuesday.
Additionally, the county’s ICU bed availability plummeted over the long weekend, dropping down to only 4.8% on Tuesday, according to the county’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard.
That sharp decline is due in part to a decline in staffed ICU beds in the county, presumably because of medical personnel out with COVID. There were 76 staffed beds on Jan. 10, but only 62 on Tuesday.
Roughly 70% of the county’s eligible population was considered fully vaccinated against the virus as of Monday.
Every household in the country is eligible to order four free at-home rapid COVID-19 antigen tests as of Tuesday, with the orders typically shipping via the United States Postal Service in 7-12 days.
Click here to order free COVID-19 tests for your household.
— 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.