The COVID-19 pandemic showed no signs of slowing down in Santa Barbara County on Saturday as public health officials reported a further 612 positive cases and three new deaths.
According to the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department’s COVID-19 data dashboard, all three residents who died were in the age group 70 and older, and none of the deaths were linked to outbreaks at municipal facilities in the county. Two individuals had underlying health issues and lived in Santa Maria, and one was from the Santa Barbara / unincorporated area of Mission Canyon.
To date, 24,149 positive cases have been reported in the county since the first local case in March, the Public Health Department said.
231 COVID-19-related deaths have been reported as of April. Santa Barbara County reported its first COVID-19 death on April 1.
In January alone, more than 70 residents of the province have died of COVID-19 so far.
There were 89 manned adult IC beds in use, and 53.9% of them were occupied by COVID-19 patients, according to the province’s online data dashboard.
ICU availability in the multi-country Southern California region remained at 0% Saturday. Santa Barbara County adjusted ICU availability was 1.3%. The California stay-at-home order is triggered when ICU availability in a region drops by less than 15%.
Of the new cases on Saturday, Santa Maria had 192, Santa Barbara 113, Lompoc 51, the Montecito-Summerland-Carpinteria area reported 34, Orcutt 36, Goleta counted 32, and the unincorporated area of Goleta Valley and Gaviota 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.
196 confirmed COVID-19 patients were treated in local hospitals, up from 192 the previous day. Of these, 48 residents were in intensive care units – four fewer than the previous day.
According to the Public Health Department, there are still 2,811 cases in Santa Barbara County as contagious.
According to Saturday’s Daily Status Report, a total of 371,873 COVID-19 tests were conducted in Santa Barbara County. More than 3,990 COVID-19 tests were reported in the county Saturday.
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– Noozhawk personnel 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.