Santa Barbara County continued to experience an alarming rise in the number of daily COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with a record 779 new virus-related infections being reported.
Sunday marked by far the highest number of new COVID-19 cases in one day since the county’s first positive case in March.
The previous peak had been 512 cases three days earlier, on January 7.
No new COVID-19 deaths were reported in the province on Sunday.
The county’s total number of positive cases rose to 21,323 and the cumulative death toll remained at 197.
Updated COVID-19 county hospital admission data, including the number of patients needing treatment in intensive care units, was not available Sunday, according to the Santa Barbara County Community Data Dashboard.
Information “will be reported as it becomes available,” said the county public health department.
Of Sunday’s new cases, Santa Maria had 205, Santa Barbara 183, the Montecito-Summerland-Carpinteria area had registered 64, Lompoc had 60, Goleta reported 56, Orcutt registered 45, and Santa Ynez Valley had 43 .
There were 35 in the unincorporated area of Goleta Valley and Gaviota, along with 10 in Isla Vista, and 18 in the unincorporated area.
Geographic locations were pending for 60 cases.
There were still 2,129 COVID-19 contagious cases in the province as of Sunday.
Santa Barbara County has reported 1,379 new COVID-19 cases in the past three days, according to the county’s community data dashboard.
The county’s COVID-19 data dashboard indicates that “adjusted” availability of ICUs in Santa Barbara County and the Multi-county Southern California region remained at 0%.
Santa Barbara County is grouped into the large Southern California region, where ICU availability must increase to 15% or more before the county can abandon the regional stay-at-home order.
The County Public Health Department’s COVID-19 website, publichealthsbc.org, provides information on what to do if you have tested positive for COVID-19 or if you suspect you have COVID-19, plus instructions for home isolation and quarantine . Click here for more information.
Click here for Noozhawk’s Coronavirus Crisis section.
– Noozhawk writer Brooke Holland can be reached at . (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @Newsurvey and @RTLnews. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.