Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (PHD) encourages community members to get tested for COVID-19 to help loosen restrictions to reopen more businesses.
During a press conference on Friday, PHD Director Van Do-Reynoso stated the active case numbers are not declining enough to meet the standards of the next lowest tier. Moving into the red “substantial” tier means more businesses can reopen indoor operations with modifications such as restaurants, personal care services, churches, movie theatres, and gyms.
Santa Barbara County is currently in the purple “widespread” tier with a 7.9 case rate per day. However, the case rate is adjusted by the state to 8.3 based on the level of testing compared to the state’s average. The rate will be adjusted upwards if testing is below the average and downwards if testing is more than the average.
The county must be below a 7 case rate per day, or an average of 217 weekly cases, to qualify for the next tier. Do-Reynoso stated that increased testing will help the county achieve this goal.
Do-Reynoso also voiced her concerns about a “twin pandemic” as we enter into the flu season and urged residents to stop gathering.
Contact tracers indicated that social gatherings are the biggest issue. Over the Labor Day weekend, people tested positive for COVID-19 after attending church services, family gatherings of 15 people or more, social events with friends, meetups with three different families, house parties, and funerals.
Public Health Now Encouraging All Community Members to Get Tested
Over the past four months, the state-run COVID-19 testing sites’ utilization has fluctuated based on the need of the community. These testing sites have seen lower utilization rates over the past few weeks which has left sites with open availability for testing, states PHD.
While emphasizing the importance of those in higher-risk environments receiving testing, PHD is now encouraging all community members to be tested.
The importance of getting tested for COVID-19 has never been greater. The positivity rate and case rate, two of the most vital measures in determining our County’s allowance to move to the red tier, are dependent on having robust testing. When a county does not meet the State’s standard for testing, it can be penalized with increased positivity rate and case rate. In an effort to achieve widespread testing, community members can in turn help Santa Barbara County protect the health and safety of our neighbors while fulfilling requirements to progress in reopening.
“We are again opening up the state-run testing sites for all community members. Testing turnaround times have greatly improved thanks to state and local efforts and we are now seeing an average turnaround time for results of under 72 hours,” said Do-Reynoso. “Detecting COVID-19 remains crucial to stopping the spread of this virus and one of the best tools we have to do just that is testing.”
State-run testing sites are located in Santa Maria, Buellton, and Goleta. Appointments can be made by visiting https://lhi.care/covidtesting or by calling 888-634-1123 for those with no internet access. Testing is by appointment only.
New School Waiver Approvals
Four more elementary schools have been approved by the state to reopen in-person learning as soon as possible. They are:
Coastline Christian Academy, Goleta
Santa Ynez Valley Family School, Los Olivos
Pacific Christian School, Santa Maria
Santa Ynez Christian Academy, Santa Ynez
There are now eight K-6 schools within the county that have been approved to reopen. Overall 22 have applied with six more currently being reviewed by the state.
New Health Order for Homeless Shelter and H-2A Housing Screenings
Earlier on Friday, PHD released a new health officer order requiring temperature screening, self-evaluation, and reporting of COVID-19 cases at all homeless shelters and H-2A housing in the County of Santa Barbara.
The order was issued as an attempt to ensure good outcomes for residents in those two settings, said Do-Reynoso. Although there hasn’t been a recent uptick of COVID-19 outbreaks in these settings, she stated in the past there had been one outbreak at a shelter and a COVID-19 positive case at another shelter that was quickly mitigated to prevent an outbreak. She didn’t have immediate information on outbreaks at H-2A housing.
While these measures were previously mandated, the health officer order now has the weight of potential consequences and legal action if these measures aren’t followed. Do-Reynoso said it has been a lengthy process in developing these guidelines and engaging stakeholders but Santa Barbara County is the first to do this.
“We’re trailblazers,” she said.
Friday’s Numbers
PHD is reporting two additional deaths of individuals who tested positive for COVID-19. Two resided in the City of Santa Maria. One individual was between the ages of 50-69 and one was over 70 years of age. Both had underlying medical conditions. None of the residents reported were in congregate living facilities.
On Friday there were 30 new cases bringing the total to 8,608. Of the total, 183 cases are still active or infectious. There are currently 38 hospitalizations including 12 in the intensive care unit.
More data can be found at https://publichealthsbc.org/santa-barbara-county-surveillance-metrics/ and https://publichealthsbc.org/status-reports/.
and You use the illegitimate nocebo rhetorical device too much. Once is too much.
lets all go at once !
Correct me if I’m wrong, but those tests cost between $200 and $250 each the last time I checked. So it would cost $90 to $110 million to test everyone in the county just once. Wouldn’t it make more sense just to give the shutdown local businesses that money?
Who in Public Health is going finally speak truth to power: “Stop making us play numbers games, Gov Newsom. We are no longer on your team because we don’t like the game you are playing.”
Do-Reynoso asking the public to help rig the data is shameful and just proves she and Ansorg have no clue what they’re doing. How about enforcing any of the number of health orders you’ve released in the past several months? Neither of these two officials have managed to get a handle on this and, in fact, the numbers in our county have actually trended upwards in the past 6 months under their watch. If you think Do-Reynoso and Ansorg and feeling desperate now, just wait until the UCSB students return in the next two weeks.
“We’re trailblazers,” she said.
What did she really mean by that statement?
I would trust her and the rest of the county health about as much as I would a Ponzi scheme, maybe they both have something in common??
Buckle your seat belts now, we are heading into turbulence times ahead the next 6 months or more!! Thank god we don’t have to wear body armor to go outside yet!!
“We’re trailblazers,” she said.
What did she really mean by that statement?
I would trust her and the rest of the county health about as much as I would a Ponzi scheme, maybe they both have something in common??
Buckle your seat belts now, we are heading into turbulence times ahead the next 6 months or more!! Thank god we don’t have to wear body armor to go outside yet!!
Seems to me if people who don’t feel sick would quit getting tested there wouldn’t be so many false positives and we could open up sooner.
Seems to me if people who don’t feel sick would quit getting tested there wouldn’t be so many false positives and we could open up sooner.
You watch way too much Faux News VVorker
I’m appalled. Seems like a recommendation for gaming the system to me. So that we can appear better than we are and open businesses sooner than our bad infection rate justifies.
Okay, I thought. I will cooperate and allow someone to stick a long Q-tip up my nose. How do I sign up? That was my first wrong choice of the day.
This ihi.care website is a waste of time. I spent about ten minutes filling in three pages of forms, and not finishing. The page/form had a problem, and would not tell/show me where to fix the problem and finish. Another four minutes punching buttons on my phone to finally get to a person. “I am sorry that it is not working……”. Then asked if I would spend another ten minutes giving her my information. She had no interest in passing that info to their web site guru.
The trail blazers are the ones with the arrows in their backs.
She’s advocating for more people suspected of not having Covid to test so the percentage goes down. This is a strategy? Let’s lie to ourselves? Never mind adjusting the percentage downwards based on outcomes. Oh no. We’d rather have Everyone test! Sounds also like FEWER people are “utilizing” testing facilities. This is good thing of course. But she can’t have testing facilities turn stagnant for good reason. So even if you’re not sick, come on down! Oh, and while you’re there? How bout a flu shot?
LILBIRD: The more Covid 19 testing that is done the more ACCURATE the assessment of herd penetration of it.
If everyone was tested every day we would have the most accurate information.
I had a test in July, which was required before I went into a hospital in L.A. County for a procedure. It dawned on me that I could easily have been infected after that negative test, simply by stopping at the gas station bathroom on the way home, or in the hospital itself. What good does a test do if you can be infected afterward? The test only measures that particular space in time. It would be much more effective if people stopped having gatherings and started wearing masks if they have to go out.
SHOREBIRD has it right, HASKELSLOCAL. She is advocating for more accurate information. Because you can be infected with this virus and not have any symptoms, no good assessment can happen if non-symptomatic people aren’t tested. It’s not faking the numbers, it’s a real strategy. Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it can’t be effective. Testing everyone is what has worked all over the world.
I wonder how many of you will still wear a mask in your car with the windows up in 10 years from now because the science (in California) says it’s not safe to take them off yet? Oh wait the world ends before that I forgot, your Tv has you believing that too.
This is just a flagrant example of how to lie with statistics. The more people that test negative the sooner we can open up even of the average number of daily cases remains the same or even edges up, the apparent percentage goes down.
Asking for the public to test so that they can manipulate the numbers to show a lower percentage. But with the tests returning false positives that will inevitably return more CASES. The test ONLY measures current infection, a status that can change before you even get the results back. (At Sansum the test results come back in 15 minutes.) The tests do NOT measure antibodies, so we still have no data on community spread. The ONLY number that matters, which we are never told, is the number of excess deaths. That might give us deaths due to covid. Meanwhile these “trailblazers” are loving every minute of their highly paid moment in the TV spotlights.
Not a lie. Rather exposing the truth.
Here we go again with contradictory “requests” & info from public health.
And we’re all along for the ride.
So Newsom is going to penalize SB for not getting tested.
That’s making up false numbers.
Newsom & Pub Health, stop politicizing the number of Covid positives.
I agree w Navigator. Spend that testing money where it can truly help the people.
JUST TWO WEEKS TO FLATTEN THE CURVE, THEN LIFE GOES BACK TO NORMAL!
HAHAHAHA THE SHEEPLE FELL FOR IT
Since this extra testing of well persons are not “free” – someone has to pay for them – this will more to the taxpayer’s bill, just to game the system that is already punishing taxpayers economically. Sobering lesson what “big government” really looks like, acts like and costs like. But then this is just OPM, so government employees are okay with spending it at will. This is where our elected supervisors, our tax dollar overseers, need to step in and scream – stop this nonsense. But this is just OPM to them too.