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Santa Barbara County remains in red level of the multi-level COVID-19 reopening framework after Tuesday’s level assessment.
The county reported an adjusted case rate of 5.3, which is down 0.5 from the previous week. The test positivity rate remained at 2.2% and the health equity test positivity rate increased slightly to 4.1%.
While the test positivity rate and the health equity test positivity rate both meet the requirements of the less restrictive Amber level, the county’s adjusted case rate must fall below four new daily cases per 100,000 population. in order to qualify for the moderate orange level.
Once the county meets all the orange level criteria for two consecutive weeks, it can officially move up to the orange level. Moderate Orange Tier comes with relaxed COVID-19 reopening restrictions, including indoor dining at 50% capacity; cinemas, museums, zoos, aquariums and places of worship opening indoors at 50% of their capacity; and indoor gymnastics operations opening at 25% of their capacity, among others.
Public health director Van Do-Reynoso said on Friday she expected this to happen in a week or two.
Additionally, if California meets its second vaccine equity target of delivering 4 million vaccines to hardest-hit communities, defined by 400 specific zip codes, the tier thresholds will drop lower and allow the county to qualify more easily for the orange level.
The state has already lowered the thresholds once, when the vaccine equity target of 2 million vaccines was reached on March 12.
The state administered 2.4 million vaccines to defined communities on Tuesday, according to the state’s Vaccine Dashboard.
On Monday, 185,415 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered to the arms of residents of Santa Barbara County through the county public health department and the federal partnership with CVS, Walgreens and Rite-Aid, according to the Dashboard of county community data, and 14.5% of the county population is fully immunized.
According to the scorecard, approximately 37,800 residents of South County, nearly 10,500 residents of Mid-County and about 17,800 residents of North County are fully vaccinated.
Santa Barbara County public health officials on Tuesday reported 30 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths.
One of the deceased was over 70 and one was between 50 and 69. One of the people had underlying health issues, according to Public Health. Both people resided in Santa Maria and Orcutt.
The county’s cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths has risen to 438.
On Tuesday, 28 patients were hospitalized with the virus across the county, including 10 in intensive care units. COVID-19 patients occupied 13.2% of the county’s 76 available intensive care beds. The county’s ICU availability rate edged down to 48.7% on Tuesday.
Of Tuesday’s new cases, 16 were from the Santa Maria Valley, three from the Goleta Valley and three from Santa Barbara. The Montecito-Summerland-Carpinteria region, the Santa Ynez Valley, the Lompoc Valley and the Lompoc Federal Penitentiary Complex each reported one new case.
Four cases were awaiting geographic location and no new cases were reported in Isla Vista.
There were 191 community cases still considered infectious across the county, and there have been 33,134 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic.
– Noozhawk writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at (JavaScript must be enabled to display this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
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