Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to send a letter to the Governor asking to be removed from the Southern California region in the recent Regional Stay at Home Order.
Santa Barbara is banding together with San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties to propose its own “Central Coast” region. Ventura County Supervisors also approved sending a letter on Tuesday with San Luis Obispo supervisors still to vote on the action.
The current “Southern California” region created by the state includes Imperial, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties. This incorporates over 23 million people. San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbra, and Ventura counties include nearly 1.5 million people.
The current order forces the entire Southern California region to shut down when the collective intensive care unit (ICU) capacity reaches below 15%. As of Tuesday, this number was at 10.1% for the region.
Officials from the three neighboring counties expressed the current order is unfair as the Central Coast does not have the higher COVID-19 transmission rates and lack of ICU space that larger Southern California counties have. Being in this region will prevent the Central Coast from positively moving forward due to a high prevalence of the disease in larger areas.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Santa Barbara County Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso stated the counties will ask to exit the stay at home order after three weeks if the ICU capacity in the three counties exceeds 15% and is expected to stay on that course based on the four-week ICU bed capacity projection.
Do-Reynoso said all three counties have a history of collaboration and partnership and will coordinate joint prevention and treatment efforts to reduce COVID-19 case rates and testing positivity.
“We are confident that this is a regional approach and we will be working together across the three counties to propose this to discuss this feasibility with our state counterparts,” said Do-Reynoso.
The Board listened to nearly fifty public comments from local residents and business orders asking to be removed from the stay at home order.
The motion passed unanimously for the county to send a letter to the Governor.
Update to COVID-19 Numbers
During the same meeting, Do-Reynoso also gave an update on COVID-19 data and hospitalizations.
From November 23 to December 7, Santa Barbara County had a 12% increase in COVID-19 cases. There are now 643 active cases, an 87% increase. This is also a 44% increase from the last peak of cases at 444 in July with the all-time peak being 950 cases in May.
New COVID-19 cases are popping up all over the county with a 20% increase in Santa Maria and a 75% increase in Lompoc. Isla Vista has seen a significant decrease from 37 cases to just 18 cases.
There are currently 54 hospitalizations, an 157% increase during this period, including 15 people in the ICU which is a 150% increase.
Do-Reynoso released more specific data on comorbidities for hospitalizations and deaths. Of the 922 total hospitalizations, 45.4% of people did not have comorbidities. Of those who did have one comorbidity, 31% had diabetes, 17.8% were obese, and 14.4% had serious heart conditions.
There have been 138 total deaths. Of those, 24 had the only cause of death listed on their death certificate as COVID-19 with 53 deaths including diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and/or obesity. The remaining 61 deaths had COVID-19 and other causes listed on the death certificate.
Half of all hospitalizations were people over 50 years of age with the Hispanic/Latinx population being disproportionately represented compared to population size.
The common length of stay was up to five days with 16% of hospitalizations having a length of over 15 days.
More data can be found at https://publichealthsbc.org
Thank you Santa Barbara.
Thank you
Santa Barbara has remained wide open to the world..so what does any of it matter?
This is beyond stupid. Be careful what you wish for. Half of LA is starting their engines for Santa Barbara daytrips in 3, 2, 1….
Yahoo. About time.
I agree with this, restrictions should be county-based, not region-based.
Good call. It makes no sense for this area to be included with LA county in the same region. Out of the 5 regions, “Southern California” has 3x the population of any other region. Why?
2:45 – good point, which is why we need to close down SB. We should be able to limit tourism for the sake of public health.
Doubtful. Beaches and such are still open over there, they aren’t going to come en masse to drive for 2 hours, eat lunch, and drive home
Pros & Cons to the above plan:
Pro: Less restrictions, more people will come to SB
Con: Less restrictions, more people will come to SB
C’mon people, the Virus can only move around when we move around. It’s that simple.
Yes, it’s economically bad to be shut down, but it’s also bad to die out by the hospital dumpster because every bed is full.
Please don’t do this Santa Barbara. It’s a terrible idea.
We are not going to get past this nightmare if we don’t: follow the science, wear a mask, social distance, don’t gather, STAY at HOME.
It’s going to hurt either way.
@2:45 who do you think has been filling up our restaurants on downtown areas for the past 6 months… LA! Our local businesses really stepped up to the plate, enacted all the recommended safety precautions and best practices and none of these businesses are where the spread in SB county is coming from.
According to the SBPHD, homes and private gatherings are the biggest contributor. A few restaurateurs spoke at the meeting today, one said they’ve served over 15,000 people without any of their staff testing positive. Do you think closing outdoor dinning is going to increase the number of private gathers or decrease? Where do you think it would be safer for people to meet, in an outdoor restaurant with trained staff, sanitization, and distanced tables or a backyard BBQ? If you haven’t realized it yet, telling people not to socialize for 9+ months isn’t an option.
Definitely agree with this move. I just wonder if Newsom will agree that he made yet another poor and impulsive decision, and exclude SB County from the SoCal region.
It makes sense to be in the same group as LA. If SB does not have the same restrictions in place as LA it’s just an invitation for LA people to come up to SB to be ‘free’ and bring or spread the virus amongst our community. SB needs to be in the same group as LA as there is too much cross over or influence between our areas. It’s, hopefully, only 3 weeks.
Don’t try to figure out what Newsom’s thinking he’s a moron
Not really seeing the logic here. Santa Barbara should be in the same group as Los Angeles County because… people from LA can drive 2 hours to get here? Most spread done through private gatherings. These private events can still happen even with all local businesses shut down and hemorrhaging money
VOR, it’s not one or the other. People going to restaurants can also have private gatherings. In fact, I would say that if you go to restaurants with strangers, you almost assuredly feel comfortable having your friends and family over. Restaurants should offer takeout, and people should stay home as much as possible.
Actually, SCHMONK, you just bent the narrative to fit your beliefs. Private gatherings AND dining out have been identified by the CDC as the leading causes of COVID spread. And yes, LA folks absolutely can, will, and do travel 2 hours for a fun day in SB!
Hotels are open. Either way it goes LA is coming up here. I vote for keeping business open safely so half the population doesn’t go homeless all at once. Folks have to be able to keep a roof over their head and foods in their family’s mouth.
LA will come up one way or the other. Hotels are open. You can get takeout. They can come up for the day. I doubt anyone is policing who is checking in all the motels and such.
SB should petition to be part of Canada- the covid case rate there is low.
Pit, you tip toed around my question. Do you think closing outdoor dinning is going to increase or decrease the number of private gatherings? Most importantly, please don’t forget you and everyone else are free to stay home and stay safe. No one is forcing you to do anything you’re not comfortable doing.
By the time Newsom hits the delete button the email we’ll be at 15%
So everyone from LA and SF will come here to eat in our restaurants and spread COVID
I’ll take that bet. While the positive case has shot up dramatically and the raw number of COVID hospitalizations has increased, the number of COVID patients in the hospital, the ICU and on ventilators has not increased proportionally. In fact, the % COVID positive patients in the hospital, ICU and ventilators has actually DECREASED, as defined by hospitalized/active*100, etc. Currently we have 50% of the ICUs available, and that’s will only 99 beds. At one time we had 150 available, so they’re not even using the full capacity. Santa Barbara is not Los Angeles. Stop scaring people.
DPJ- SF and LA have already been coming here every month during and after the last take out only mandate ended. Restaurants and other small businesses are not the real problem. Servers and cooks would be dropping like flies if that were the case after serving thousands of maskless patrons. Did you even read this article where business owners spoke out saying no cases occurred for their employees after serving upwards of 15,000 people? I’d say that’s pretty damn good news. Have people gather in public OUTSIDE because they’re going anyways. Patio dining was probably mitigating some, not all but some private gatherings. I’m pro-business and pro-protection! Both are achievable.
did anyone notice that they did not set a date for sending “the letter”. How many more days will pass with folks suffering from Gov Newscum’s knee jerk, no science shutdown approach. Show us the science!!!
Does anyone know if they are keeping stats on SB County Covid rates (excluding front line workers) relative to a person’s IQ. I suspect early on IQ was not not a determining factor – but recently it has to be a huge indicator. With so many people social distancing and wearing masks for someone to get Covid right now the people involved have to be complete idiots. You literally have to interact with someone you do not know in close proximity for an extended period of time. Who is doing this? I can understand youngsters who are in good health – but if you are obese, diabetic, or have some shitty health condition, then what are you thinking? Darwin is literally saying “I told you so”.
It seems amazing to me that everyone is focusing on the Governor in this. Like he doesn’t have staff of 100s advising him on this, and a government of 1000s backing him up. But sure, let’s all blame him for our troubles. My dogs didn’t listen to me the other day, that’s got to be his fault too.
Give it a couple weeks. The governor will tear this letter up anways.
Just let it spread wildly like republican governed states. That seems to be going well…
Now you’re saying a couple of weeks? It didn’t take much to make you to walk back that comment.
Doesn’t look like we’re doing much better than those horrific red states smarty pants. Pit-that is hilarious coming from a person who’s party blames orangey for hurricanes, homeless encampments and everything else in between lmao. Thanks for the evening chuckles.
Ventura is down to 4 ICU beds. If you had a family you would be concerned about their welfare Einstein.
OMG, you actually just proved 420722’s point! That’s too funny.
“The only story I can find”… a true keyboard warrior. Believe it or not, there is a lot going on in our very town, let alone state, that you won’t know about if you rely on articles from news outlets. I work with many small businesses and there is absolutely enforcement going on. Enforcement and threats of revoking permits/licensing by misguided / drunk on power bureaucrats who have no idea the challenges of trying to run a small businesses is happing here in SB (while of course not refunding any of the fees the businesses had to pay in order to operate, but now aren’t allowed to).
I have been reading Edhat and these comments for a long time and decided to join the crew here.
Yes, I have some comments for all of you.
I have never considered the “Tri Counties” as part of LA or any of the others down there. We are a different tribe. In fact I was insulted when we were called “Central California, south coast”.
That is what we are and should not be included with all those maniacs.
Want to get Newson to act? Get all three of the county supervisors to act at once and get that to all the media outlets. All the papers, TV stations and comment forums like this. The man is not stupid, just misinform and doesn’t want to commit political suicide.
Re: RHS’s 8:29am comment – why would 3 people “disagree” with that? It’s a quote. It’s not an opinion. Are 3 people upset about the fact that someone admitted, on their deathbed, that they should have done more to avoid getting sick?
PIT and virtue signaling comments that have no basis in reality, name a more iconic duo
Secessionist treasonous scoundrels.
We’ll never know, as so many didn’t and don’t follow recommendations.
OMG, the irony of that comment Pit compared to how you and others blamed another political leader the past four years…. wow. Is there no accountability anymore?
It’s pointless. ICUs down south will hit full capacity today, and you know what will happen? Patients will start to be transferred up here. People will purposely drive here to get in a hospital. They’re not going to let people suffer in hallways when there are open beds 2 hours up the road in SB! Our ICUs will be full within a week. Watch.
Aquaholic – I agree with you 100%.
Why do you people think an airborne virus spread by people will just stop at an invisible county line?
It’s hard to fathom why the willfully ignorant are hell bent on making the misery index exponentially worse, prolonging this nightmare by not adhering to a bit of tough love and sacrifice. We won’t outrun or sidestep this virus, it doesn’t care what we think or what we want. We could have been miles ahead of this, if we’d had a clear, science based message and good examples of behavior from Day One. Sadly, we still do not.
Covid-19 is not the only malady that might land one in the hospital. If that happens, I sure hope there is room, and enough healthy medical professionals available.
The “real” data from Cottage website directly – almost 44% capacity. This lockdown is total BS. OPEN UP!!!
https://www.cottagehealth.org/coronavirus-covid-19/updates/
This is a really tough situation for Santa Barbara County. We want to have our cake and eat it too! We want our restaurants to stay open so we can continue to enjoy dining out and they can thrive, we don’t want to be inundated with COVID carriers from LA looking to escape their stay at home order, we want our kids to stay in school if they’ve returned or go back ASAP, some don’t want anyone demanding they wear masks all the time, some don’t want to admit how serious this virus is despite the FACT that thousands of people continue to die every day. The ICU capacity is shrinking rapidly but you better believe we will WANT a bed in the ICU should we need one! Come on folks! With well over a hundred new cases every day in SB County what do you think is going to happen?? We are on a very dark path towards hospitals with No Vacancy. If you want to support the local businesses who are struggling, quit your bitching about the Governor and start putting your money where your big mouth is. Order Take Out, buy gift cards, keep shopping for gifts, support those who’ve lost their jobs. Put pressure on the obstructionists in the Senate (Mitch McConnell and friends) to pass the dang relief bill for workers who are impacted. YES, it’s the Republicans holding it up and anyone who wants to argue otherwise can go suck an egg. I’m so tired of this BS…
Aquaholic, calling those that don’t live in fear over a virus that that is particularly dangerous to only a very specific subset of our population, those that not only know the risks but how mitigate those risks when they go to work, go to a store, or to eat at an outdoor restaurant, calling them “willfully ignorant” is by no means accurate. The only ignorant people are the ones that still believe the best response is to let our governor micro-manage the lives and livelihoods of 40 million people. You may not be able to understand and mitigate the risks covid poses to our daily lives but most of us can. Please stay home, stay safe, and stop trying to control other people. Why can’t the “tough love and sacrifice” be telling people like you to JUST STAY HOME?
Before his death Friday from complications of COVID-19, Alabama state Sen. Larry Dixon, 78, asked his wife from his hospital bed to relay a warning.+
“Sweetheart, we messed up. We just dropped our guard. … We’ve got to tell people this is real,” his friend Dr. David Thrasher, a pulmonologist, quoted him as saying.
Although Dixon, a Republican, had been conscientious about masks and social distancing, he met up with friends at a restaurant for what they called a “prayer meeting,” and three of them fell ill, Thrasher said.
LA Times Dec 9, 2020
GT: It doesn’t fit your narrative but FYI, it IS spreading wildly in every state in our nation no matter the governors political affiliation. Except maybe that tiny island in the middle of the Pacific with great weather where everyone can get plenty of fresh air year-round.
VOR, we have Trump because of people like you. Trump is the figurehead, but you are his political base. Hope it works out for you.
at 8:44: “Wear a mask. Stay home, stop the spread. If we did this for one month we could open up.” if that worked, we wouldn’t still be in a pandemic.
Uh, you know Ventura is a pretty conservative county with lots of Trump supporters, right? Simi Valley, home of the Rodney King beating trial? No surprise that they are having trouble meeting the state mandates.
VOR – Just curious, are you saying there are less cases in Hawaii because of the nice weather? If so, aside from the whole being an island thing, how does that then explain our rising cases? We have had sunny and relatively warm days since last spring and yet our cases are going up.
7:09am – Our hospitals seem to be OK according to NPR. As of right now, looks like only 10% of hospital beds in the county are being used by COVID patients, with only 9% at Cottage. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/12/09/944379919/new-data-reveal-which-hospitals-are-dangerously-full-is-yours
420722 – come on now, chastising liberals for blaming Trump for things? You Republicans are still blaming Hilary and Obama for current problems. Trumps entire presidency was based on blaming predecessors and former candidates’ emails. No one is innocent of playing the blame game, but there is definitely a winner. Hint: His lawyer blamed a man who’s been dead since 2013 for the 2020 election……
VOR – really? See my comment to 420722 about blame. And so what if we blamed the President of the United States for things that happened on his watch and for which he was directly responsible. Of course we did. That’s how it works. When you’re the Pres, you are in charge, ergo… when things go wrong at your hands, you get blamed. I’m surprised at your surprise here.
While it’s frustrating, I can see this being a slippery slope. If the Gov allows our tri-counties to separate region than I’m sure Orange County will ask to be separated and other counties will ask to be separated. There’s no pleasing everyone but making an exception for one opens the doors for all. If I was Gov I’d stick by the original decision and re-evaluate in 3 weeks as previously stated.
VOR’s capacity for doublethink/doublespeak is epic.
Sac, this difference is Trump could not have prevented the virus from infecting the US. Newsom has full control over restaurant’s outdoor operations. Pit, Trump is the result of decades political disfunction and the peoples desire for this to change. This wasn’t/isn’t a red or a blue thing, it’s that the political establishment/elites on both sides weren’t working for the people. The Democrats had several potential candidates to appease this desire for change who could have beat Trump hands downs, but they went with Clinton and Biden instead.
I agree chemical. It should be by county not region. I’ve lost all my respect for newscum, I thought he would handle the pandemic well but it seems that’s too much to ask of any leader. Smh
For the record, other counties reject being lumped in as one “SoCal” region and towns are even talking about seccessionist concepts like forming local health departments with their own rules. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/coronavirus-california-outdoor-dining-ban.html
Outdoors, socially distanced, healthy persons assuming the risk should be allowed to have a Christmas undeterred by Governor Grinch.
VOR – you can’t let Trump off the hook and then in the very same breath blame Newsom. Trump didn’t bring the virus here, no. But, he DID fail to do ANYTHING to prevent its spread and even encouraged his followers to ignore it as a liberal hoax all the while knowing it was a deadly disease. Are you seriously going to say our blame for his handling of this is misplaced? Trump did everything he could to slow the spread? I know you’re intelligent, please don’t let me down.
And from NPR, an interactive map showing that our county is way below those embattled with flooded ICU issues…how ridiculous to lump us with those counties…in thirty seconds this is apparent https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/12/09/944379919/new-data-reveal-which-hospitals-are-dangerously-full-is-yours
It’s not that “simple” for most folks trying to keep a roof over their head and feed their families.
If we took Ventura off the central coast list we would be around 45% capacity. Most of the 55% in ICU are not covid. Plus, both SB and SLO counties have additional space available.
I fully support you acting like there is no pandemic with almost 300,000 dead people, as long as you sign a contract saying you will not use hospital resources if you get sick. Seems fair.
LCP, even if they fully reopened all of the businesses and didn’t care how many people died, most of us would not go back to using them like we did before 3/2020. I talked to a restaurant owner whose rent was 18,000/mo who had not been able to turn a decent profit since the great recession of 2008. Finally his landlord dropped the recent this year which has allowed him to stay open. So without some help, small businesses are not going to survive this anyway. This is just the hard truth of this pandemic.
VOR, the nation as a whole has never done a full shutdown. So saying that this has been tried and failed is untrue.
Yeah, those 100 beds should be enough for the 25 million people in LA. That’s some good thinking there.
Last time I looked ALL states are riding this latest wave, and most not as bad as CA. I can’t believe you just said that!
Pit, it is simply not possible to close down a county the size of the US, to have 330 million people stay home, to stop the economic engine of the world for any period of time. Comments like that are devoid of any thought to the worldwide consequences of doing a full shutdown in the US. The resulting millions of deaths throughout the world due to poverty and famine would pale in comparison to covid deaths. To advocate for something like this is so extremely short-sighted and reeks of self preservation. when was the last time, if ever, you went 30 days with no savings and no paychecks?
CSF got his statistics certificate at Barnum and Bailey
Elitist Santa Barbarians are simply too elite to catch a virus.
No GT, they expect the burden of our response to be carried by others so they don’t catch the virus, while their paychecks keep coming in (or have plenty in the bank/investments).
No one is enforcing any of these shutdown edicts except for bars or houses holding big parties, so people complaining about them seem a little self-serving. The only story I can find about this recently is SF shutdown 11 bars since March. Feel free to live your lives as you see fit, but please stay away from me and the hospitals. https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-bar-shutdown-sf-covid-rollback-coronavirus-covid19/7877455/
VOR, I noticed you didn’t post ANY links to support your argument. Threats are not punishment, right? . ” Believe it or not, there is a lot going on in our very town, let alone state, that you won’t know about if you rely on articles from news outlets.” Pretty much sums up your arguments. You’ve asserted so many Trumpian things that I will not believe what you say unless you back it up with links.