Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (PHD) announced educators and food service workers will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine next week.
During a press conference on Friday evening, PHD Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso confirmed the next tier of childcare providers, educators, emergency service workers, agricultural workers, and food/grocery employees will be eligible to receive the vaccine along with healthcare workers and anyone over the age of 65 years.
As of Tuesday, the county has administered 87% of the doses received. The percentage is lower than normal due to last week’s storm delay, but PHD fully anticipates being caught up by next week.
PHD stated it will follow the state’s guidance of a 70/30 vaccine administration approach. Approximately 70% of all vaccines received will be allocated to people aged 65 and older while 30% will be allocated for all other eligible sectors.
For educators, local Superintendents discussed prioritization with PHD on who will get vaccinated first and determined they would start with special education teachers who work with medically fragile students. At least 1,000 vaccines are earmarked for this group next week.
COVID-19 Numbers Plateau
PHD officials stated they are somewhat worried about the recent plateau in COVID-19 case rates and testing positivity
Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg stated the case rates are dropping, just not as drastically as before and he would have liked to see them go down faster. He said the plateau of metrics appears to be a global phenomenon with cases being stalled after a decline, and at this level, even a small number of active cases is enough to keep the virus spreading.
Dr. Do-Reynoso attributed the plateau to pandemic fatigue, people getting tired of all the personal sacrifices made in the past year. She encouraged the community to stay vigilant until everyone is vaccinated.
Approximately 80% of all infections are caused by 10% of people who are socializing and not following proper guidelines, said Dr. Ansorg. He said this is happening on a global scale and keeps the pandemic going.
Friday’s Numbers
The PHD reports 2 deaths and 104 new cases on Friday. Two individuals were 70+ years of age. Both individuals had underlying health conditions. No deaths were associated with an outbreak at a congregate care site. The individuals resided in the city of Santa Barbara and the area including the City of Lompoc and the communities of Mission Hills and Vandenberg Village.
There have now been 409 deaths within the county since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Santa Barbara County currently has 382 active cases. Of those, 76 are hospitalized with 18 in the intensive care unit.
More data can be found at https://publichealthsbc.org/status-reports/.
Oh no the excuses appear to be running out for the teachers. Wait, you could still go on strike. Go for it!
Unbelievable! I have been a teacher here for over 30 years. The public health dept will offer limited appts in Lompoc on the days we start teaching students in person. Our county health dept is so out of line. I signed up on Calvax.org and received an appt in Oxnard. Unfortunately, they are only taking care of their teachers from Ventura. Public health of Santa Barbara is horrific. What about Earl Warren, the Sears parking lot? Treat all residents with respect!
749pm – so the scientific community consensus is that there is no additional spread in school (beyond what is happening in the community). As such… You are the problem!!! you are willfully making sb and the world a worse place. Studies have shown an Estimated 5.5 million years of life lost due to schools being closed in 2020… that’s on you and your anti logic and science thinking. Schools being open add nothing to community spread… their closure though has a rippling effect through Society that will be felt for decades.
7:46 they might as well quit then because it will never be “safe”, we don’t live in a safe world, we never have. Have you all forgotten what the real world is like in the past year or something?
Not my experience at all. Signed up on the Cottage wait list last week. Got an email this afternoon with a link to a PDL signup site. Picked a date and time from the list presented, then entered the usual (name, address, phone, email) data and clicked the submit button. Email confirmation arrived immediately.
The experts all say school needs to open now… PERIOD! Those arguing and fighting that are doing so purely from selfish reasons…
Lots of teacher haters out there… Seems to me that for your own selfish reasons, you think that the teachers should jeopardize their health all because you are tired of parenting your own kid. Just saying.
Own selfish reasons???? Virtually everyone else is at work! The cdc and The WHO have studies showing no uptick in infections with school in place… so it’s not a safety issue! Both have pointed out the long term disastrous effects of school being out. I’ve worked straight since March… as have many others!! Why are teachers the only holdout when the HEALTH OFFICIALS are saying we have to be in school for health and safety reasons! Who’s being selfish again their cplocal? The people working and keeping society afloat or the direct deposit school admins and teacher union reps who are ignoring science… our kids health and welfare be damned ???!!!
Cplocal – They are estimating millions of years of life lost due to schools being closed in 2020 (5.53 million in fact)… I guess that’s ok with you… who’s tired and selfish again?????? Because it’s not the People working every day… it’s the teachers union who is punting on our youth!
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2772834
CPLOCAL – that whole “all they want is babysitters” argument is pathetic, especially coming from those considered to be “educated.” People want what’s best for their kids and remote learning is NOT it. I’m happy at home with my kids, but I’m not a teacher and their remote “learning” is subpar and minimal, even almost a year into this. We all want our kids properly educated. We don’t need you to babysit, we need you to educate our kids, because that is YOUR chosen profession. I absolutely love having my kids home with me as I work from home. It’s easy, it’s fun, but it’s NOT WHAT IS BEST for them. I fully agree you should have vaccine priority, EVERYONE who has to work in public now should have that. I do wonder though, why teachers didn’t push for vaccines earlier, say when they came out? Why wait till the last minute to demand them?
Quit with the lazy logic and simplistic attitude. We want our kids in school FOR THEIR SAKE, not ours.
CP local – is that Chapala Porch Local by any chance? You’re in no man’s land with your ridiculous statement. Everyone has a job, everyone has up and downs and sacrifices to make. I’d go on and on but your implicit comment that teachers will die if they resume their jobs is absurd. ABSURD.
Duke, from your post “you are willfully making sb and the world a worse place. ” From your constant irrational and anti-empathetic posts, you have already pretty much ruined it. The only somewhat positive thing is that only the people on Edhat have to read and listen to your nattering.
DUKE: “Your comment shows no capacity for thought or understanding of the world.”
It’s frightening to think that people like this may be in charge of our children’s education.
let’s see what percentage of our whining teachers opt for the vaccine….this should be telling. Since the SB school district has said they can’t teach in person learning until vaccinated, shouldn’t the vaccine be mandatory to keep your job? Can’t have it both ways!
Happy – The science and consensus of the CDC and the WHO is quite clear… there has been virtually no studies showing additional spread in school and that school closures are causing irreparable long term harm. Countless studies referenced on here have shown no statistical uptick in transmission rate in places with school open or closed. If there is a community spike… schools can close for 2 weeks in conjunction with local measures… but this attempt to never reopen by the teachers is reprehensible. Dig a little deeper (or literally just go to the CDC or WHO websites). Your position and thinking is devastating our youth!
And presumably our schools used some of the millions of dollars to upgrade their ventilation options. We’ll see! It will be interesting to so see where that 10+ million GUSD took in emergency reopening funds went.
Just an insanely self centered position that we allowed the teachers to take. Thanks for stealing 6 months of school from our kids! The kids you were supposed to be serving! Truly shameful!
I don’t understand what JB86 is talking about. My entire experience with the Cottage sign up (and subsequent vaccinations) was straightforward and easy. No order numbers requested. Has it changed? The only part that worried me was whether the appointments would be all taken in the two minutes or so it took me to read the instructions and type in my name, birthdate and address. Nothing tricky or difficult though.
Except we’ve seen many schools open in Santa Barbara, California and the US since September without issues. GUSD has hundreds of teachers/school admin kids on campus as well as special needs kids. The argument against schools opening breaks down immediately and definitively… but that much is obvious to all. Even the teachers union understands that… so now they are just doing everything they can to delay. They’ve already secured financial incentives for teachers… the longer they delay the more they can get in their ransom payment.
HZ – right… so you mean all the parents who are at work and have been working every single day to keep Society functioning? Everyone else is working… it’s just the teachers holding out and holding us hostage as they demand more and more!
They obviously won’t allow it for awhile but I’ll gladly volunteer a couple hours of week in my kids class as I did multiple times… before then going to (and staying late) at work!
And Goleta unified the week after (March 8)! Hooray!!!!
Yes… Agreed… not “everyone” is back… but pretty much everyone, unless they work at initech or penetrobe (or the like) are obviously at work keeping everything running!
JB86, you must have been on the wrong site. There’s no password required for the Cottage sign-up list. Do a search: Vaccine contact list Cottage Hospital. That should lead you to the place where you type in your name, address, email and age. Then you wait until they send you an email telling you they have appointments, click the link they give you, and choose a time.