Santa Barbara County hospitals are preparing to implement “crisis care,” as COVID-19 hospitalizations break records every day.
Crisis care means that people with urgent care needs outside of COVID-19 may not be getting the care they normally would expect, said Dr. Henning Ansorg, county public health officer.
“For example, if someone has a brain haemorrhage and can be rescued by an expert performing a procedure, this may no longer be possible or available just because the hospitals are overbooked with COVID patients,” Ansorg said at Tuesday’s COVID-19 news conference. .
With a record 172 COVID-19 patients hospitalized on Tuesday, 75% of hospital beds across the district were in use.
Of COVID-19 hospital patients, 55 require intensive care and 66.3% of the county’s staffed ICU beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
The County Public Health Department first reported 0% “adjusted” ICU availability on Tuesday, a level that the Southern California region has maintained for nearly three weeks. Actual ICU availability in the province is 8.4%.
Hospitals in the province are running out of staffed IC beds and had to start using surge beds a few days ago, said Director of Public Health Van Do-Reynoso. According to the province’s Community Data Dashboard, 12 peak beds were in use as of Tuesday.
“Given our current situation, I don’t remember. I really don’t know what to say anymore, ”said Ansorg, clearly exasperated that many people are not following public health orders to avoid meetings and travel to reduce the spread of the highly contagious disease.
Do-Reynoso also provided an update on the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the province, reporting that 54% of the 16,775 vaccines assigned to the province have already been administered to people eligible for the first stage.
In addition, Santa Barbara County Public Health received approval from the California Department of Public Health to continue to vaccinate all three levels in Stage 1A simultaneously, speeding up the process. That includes most health workers, staff and residents of skilled nursing facilities, emergency medical personnel and dialysis center staff.
Public Health has approved 42 vendors to distribute COVID-19 vaccine doses, and the providers are accelerating and operating through logistics, Do-Reynoso said.
The province expects to triple the number of providers that distribute the vaccine in the coming weeks and to vaccinate a total of about 1,000 people per day in early February.
According to Do-Reynoso, the vaccine will likely be available to the general public in late March or April.
Public health officials also reported 341 new COVID-19 cases and seven additional deaths on Tuesday. All those who died were over the age of 70, and four fatalities were linked to outbreaks in communal housing facilities, according to Public Health.
Two people lived in Santa Barbara, two lived in Santa Maria, one was from Goleta, one lived in the unincorporated area of Goleta, and one was from the Santa Ynez Valley.
The county’s cumulative COVID-19 death toll since the start of the pandemic is 173.
The number of cases considered to be still contagious across the province has surpassed 2,000 and stood at 2,105 as of Tuesday. There have been 19,019 confirmed cases in Santa Barbara County since the start of the pandemic.
Positivity rate testing and daily case studies also hit record highs. The province shows a positivity rate of 17.3% for seven days.
| Santa Barbara County | December 15th | December 22 | December 29 | January 5th |
| New positive cases have been reported in the past week | 1,268 | 1,445 | 1,541 | 2,320 |
| New cases among health workers in the past week | 54 | 84 | 72 | 50 |
| Total number of test results reported in the past week | 17,532 | 18,243 | 15,753 | 12,681 |
| COVID-19 positive hospital patients | 78 | 103 | 127 | 172 |
| Active cases (still infectious after positive testing) | 1059 | 1,245 | 1227 | 2,105 |
| Cumulative COVID-19 Related Deaths | 140 | 150 | 156 | 173 |
“All of these statistics are at the highest level they have ever been since they started in March last year,” said Do-Reynoso.
The county is only now starting to see the full effects of COVID-19 airing over the Thanksgiving holiday, Ansorg said, and the ramifications of traveling and getting together at Christmas will become apparent in the coming weeks.
In addition, there were 28 outbreaks from businesses and 48 outbreaks from congregate care setting in the province in the month of December, Do-Reynoso said.
The business outbreaks occurred in a variety of industries including agriculture, administration, retail, manufacturing, medical healthcare, cleaning services, skilled labor, restaurants, bars, supermarkets, hotels, and construction.
“I cannot stress enough that this is really a call to action for every member of our community,” said Do-Reynoso. “Together we can improve, and we should.”
The provincial briefings are now held virtually, with public health and provincial officials appearing via video conference.
The Tuesday briefing is available to watch on the Santa Barbara County YouTube page here, with versions in English and Spanish.
– Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at . (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @Newsurvey and @RTLnieuws. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.