Edhat StaffBy edhat staff
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (PHD) reports the ninth COVID-19 related death and eighteen additional cases.
The individual who passed resided in the City of Santa Barbara and un-incorporated Mission Canyon area and was in their 40’s with underlying health conditions. As of today, there are 544 confirmed cases of COVID-19, of which 442 have fully recovered.
We are saddened by the loss of this individual and extend our deepest condolences to their friends and family. As we continue to battle the spread of COVID-19, we ask community members to continue doing their part by wearing facial coverings while in public and continuing to practice social distancing,” said Van Do-Reynoso, PhD, Director of Public Health.
Thirty-seven (37) people are recovering at home, Thirty-seven (37) are recovering in a hospital, eleven (11) of whom are in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and nineteen (19) are pending an update. Nine (9) deaths have been reported.
Please visit Santa Barbara County’s coronavirus web page for other preparedness resources and updates at https://publichealthsbc.org/.
For general questions about COVID-19 and precautions currently recommended by Santa Barbara County Public Health, residents may call the 2-1-1 Call Center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by dialing 2-1-1 if calling from within the county; or (800) 400-1572 if calling from outside the area.
Cottage Health Numbers
Below is a status update as of May 5, 2020.
· Cottage Health is caring for a total of 238 patients across all campuses.
· 172 are acute care patients; 201 acute care beds remain available.
· In surge planning, capacity is identified for adding 270 acute care beds.
· Of the 172 patients, 14 patients are on ventilators; 61 ventilators remain available (adult, pediatric and neonatal ventilators).
· Of the 172 patients, 17 are in isolation with COVID-19 symptoms; 13 are confirmed COVID-19 positive.
· Of 17 patients in isolation, 7 patients are in critical care.
· Cottage has collected 4,395 cumulative test samples: 231 resulted in positive, 4,063 resulted in negative, and 101 are pending. In most of these tests, patients did not require hospital admission.
Additional Updates
On May 4, Cottage began a gradual return to scheduled non-emergency essential procedures and surgeries, starting at half capacity. As a precaution, patients are being tested for COVID-19 prior to procedures. Hospital teams will closely monitor COVID-19 status in the community, testing availability, hospital capacity and supply inventory, with ability to scale back procedures if the situation changes.
Our staff is well-prepared to provide safe care. Community members should feel safe to seek emergency care and other essential medical care to ensure their ongoing health.
SLO and Ventura Counties
As of Tuesday, San Luis Obispo County is reporting 202 cases. Of those, 156 have recovered, 40 are under quarantine at home, 5 are in the hospital with three in the ICU, and there has been 1 death.
Ventura County is reporting a total of 595 cases. Of those, 416 are recovered, 160 are under quarantine at home, 22 are hospitalized with 11 in the ICU, and there have been 19 deaths. Ventura County has conducted 11,854 tests.
New cases/day for that past 9 days (after the big beach weekend of April 25-26): 2, 4, 8, 11, 10, 4, 6, 12, and 18. See a pattern?
One unusual thing is that Goleta, which was increasing 1 case every week or so for the past month, has increased 4 cases in just one day.
Sure doesn’t seem like we are having a 14 day decline. 18 in one day and none related to the prison. Not good.
I would like to know the past activities of those 18 new cases -10 of those in SB/Goleta/Carp area where there hasn’t been much increase. What did we have going on over the last week or so that could have been the cause? I recall something about a protest and crowds flocking to the beaches……..
SAC: The median incubation time is 5 days. After the beach weekend, beginning with Monday you have: 2, 4, 8, 11, (10). The fifth day is in parenthesis. This fifth day also happened to be May 1, with the protests. Starting the following day, Saturday you have: 4, 6, 12, 18 and (?). We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what day 5 is. The demonstrations were much smaller than the beach attendance, so I’m not expecting a big number. The past 4 day increase might be the result of R0 spread/delayed-cases from the big beach weekend with tons of non-locals.
Everybody is out and about town – it is warm and those who don’t care are being careless. I read a good article that said it may take a good 2 to 3 weeks to see the increases from lack of social distancing, protesting, and trying to pretend everything is ok. It will get worse. Lack of social distancing means the virus will spread and there will be many more cases and more deaths. We’ve done well on the central coast with our stay at home order and social distancing – now selfish people are ruining all that progress.
Median of 5 days is just that, the median. There is a standard deviation associated, which is +/- several days. The shortest incubation is 2 days, for example. 5 days is plenty of time to begin seeing a surge in symptomatic cases. As far as testing time? Cottage Hospital can process 50-70 RT-PCR tests per day (https://www.independent.com/2020/04/28/santa-barbaras-ability-to-test-all-residents-still-a-couple-of-months-off/). A typical thermocycler run is only 1 hour and 20 mins. I’m not sure where you’re getting the “couple of days at the least” information from.
You noticed this latest victim had underlying conditions. Would be interesting to know what it was. How do we know the person didn’t die of the underlying condition (cancer?) , even though he may tested positive for COVID. I’ve heard regardless of the underlying condition (could even be terminal cancer) the death is always attributed to COVID , if there was a positive test or had symptoms of pneumonia.
And deaths without a positive test result get attributed to the underlying cause, so given the paltry state of testing so far, many COVID-19 deaths aren’t being reported as such.
Where are the tests?
Perhaps the availability of testing is the reason for increased positive cases. We will never know what contributes to more diagnosed cases because there hasn’t been adequate testing available. Now the county has made it easier so more people are being tested. But we have done a good job at keeping this at bay, 3/4 of the cases are related to the prison, prison staff, their contacts and health care workers. We have to be logical about this. We are going to lose many small locally owned businesses. People are going to have to move. What do you think the SB demographic will be if people can’t go back to work soon? We have to reasonably begin to open up keeping everything we have learned about hygiene and social distancing in play.
All new admits to Cottage are now being tested. They clearly all have preexisting conditions or they wouldn’t be there. One positive from this week was being treated for something completely unrelated to C19. Her only tangentially relayed symptom was a scratchy throat. Patient (and frankly staff), was shocked and humbled.
Remember, too, that positive tests are only picking up active cases…(meaning at that very moment) and have a disappointingly high false negative rate. I’m no statistician but when they say X amount of people will get it, they don’t mean all at the same time, leading to some naysayers to think the low infection rates are underwhelming.
It is so discouraging to read the posts where someone says “I heard” or “Someone told me” to then say things that are not supported by the news media or the experts holding press conferences. Is the agenda just to appear to have inside info to make one more important? Or is there an agenda to oppose anything that Trump opposes? In any event the encouragement to “liberate” folks is absolutely the wrong message. Look at this morning’s news that reports that the virus is mutating as was thought possible. Two variations are in the US, the newer stuff is in the East and the original stuff is on the West Coast. Why go out and mingle and give this disease the opportunity to mutate further, infect more, defeat medical care, and continue its onward march of sickness and death?
I did read it RHS. I don’t document and save attachments to every article of news and so forth.
And quite frankly can not remember the source. You must have some amazing skills and time on your hands if you are able to do that.
$ 37,000 to be exact .
1:18 pm. Here’s what Snopes says about this issue: What’s True It is plausible that Medicare is paying hospital fees for some COVID-19 cases in the range of the figures given by Dr. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota state senator, during a Fox News interview. What’s False However, Medicare says it does not make standard, one-size-fits-all payments to hospitals for patients admitted with COVID-19 diagnoses and placed on ventilators. The $13,000 and $39,000 figures appear to be based on generic industry estimates for admitting and treating patients with similar conditions. Thus the hospitals are not cynically likely to falsely classify other diseases as COVID versus other diseases. They get paid for the actions they take, not the diagnosis. The reimbursement would be the same regardless of the diagnostic label. AND the amount is not “$ 37,000 to be exact .”
How can one down vote this message? The facts are the facts. The claim that hospitals are purposefully falsifying COVID-19 cases and building false statistics is not supported by the truth. This sort of thing is why we have a present social system that simply cannot communicate for the good of the nation.
Because Snopes, FactCheck, and other assorted websites do fact checking, they often contradict what the administration and the right-wing media promulgate. As such, they are anathema to the local cons.
Having low numbers makes it feel like we are in a bubble and that we are safe here. People will increase their socializing and we may see a surge, hopefully not a huge surge and hopefully not a surge with many deaths from it. We have to start opening up at some point in order to move forward, and people will do their thing and those of us who want to continue to be careful CAN and SHOULD. I know that I will remain cautious until well after the stay home orders are lifted because I don’t want to be at risk, or be a carrier. But I do hope that we move forward soon.
Testing is becoming more available so numbers WILL go up just based upon people being tested that aren’t seriously ill. Once they have tests for more people guess what will happen? More tests and more positive results… logic
Why, 6:41? Because doctors throughout the United States have admitted that they have been pressured by administrators to report many deaths as directly cause by the virus, when in fact, they have stated those victims were not tested and/or had other conditions that may have contributed to their deaths.
For anyone to call COVID-19 a hoax is insane. Those misfits need to get read.
Mistyped: They need to get REAL!
https://www.scribd.com/document/455607875/US-HHS-Document-to-Doctors-on-How-to-Certify-COVID-19-Deaths-including-Related-Deaths?campaign=VigLink&ad_group=xxc1xx&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate
Don’t forget that these numbers only represent people confirmed to have it by test. Many more untested people are presumed to have it, and are told by their doctors to stay home and ride it out, not interact with anybody, and those make it onto the statistical lists.
I doubt this Goleta increase is due to testing becoming more available. First of all, the new testing was just announced yesterday, it’s not in our local area (it’s in Santa Maria), the slots were completely booked yesterday, and the test results take 48 hours on average to come back. If case numbers do increase from more testing availability , we won’t see the effects until at least a couple days from now.
And why weren’t those patients tested? Inadequate supply of tests. So doctors make educated assessments of what they believe the cause of death to be.
For the original poster, have you read what is an underlying health condition? She could have been a smoker, had asthma or maybe arthritis . Or maybe undiagnosed diabetes. All things many of us have but don’t consider life threatening.
I was a person who was healthy until a trip to a theme park and ended up in a hospital due to my bodies reaction to all the germs
We don’t know and it is really none of our business. I am sad for all those who loved her
7:34 – it would also help for them to get read. 😉
I agree. I do strongly believe we need to re-open to the extent that it is safe and precautions are taken seriously (face coverings, distancing, bans on groups, etc.). It is not tenable to stay in our houses for 2 years. That said, I started going out for coffee a few weeks ago, with precaution. The daily line has swelled now and there is zero enforcement or even encouragement for patrons to wear face coverings, so many don’t. I watched a girl full-body sneeze right in front of me with no mask – she barely caught it with her elbow. The guy behind me also didn’t feel like he needed to cover. Then he rubbed his right hand all over his nose before paying with cash which of course he grabbed and offered with his right hand. Yesterday was my last day. I saw enough. Now that everyone else is out and about, I’m staying in again. Wait and watch the numbers. It is so discouraging to watch lack of adherence to best practices sabotage things for everyone. We’ll see what happens, but most all countries that have been able to exit lockdown successfully enforce rules and that includes face coverings. A few, like Sweden do not, but there are many anomalous characteristics of Swedish life that make them exception – such as the highest percentage of single person households in the world (~50% are comprised of only one person). So Sweden is not exactly a model for how the US should proceed.
The numbers are SO small here that they are basically statistically insignificant. Even comparing a day of 2 cases to a day of 4 really means nothing, especially in light of fluctuating testing capacity. Everyone wants data, but we don’t have much for our area. We can see it is not hugely widespread from the overall low numbers, but beyond that we really can’t say much at all.
In the last week or two Ventura County said one of their deaths was an over dose, but because they had Covid, it’s booked as a Covid death. Someone died regardless and that is always unfortunate no matter the cause. But in terms of actual stats for the outbreak cases like these and those already in hospice care skew the stats.
Everyone. NOBODY is calling this a hoax. Open your window and get some fresh air.
Yes. Hospitals are pressured to call deaths Covid Cases. I read somewhere they get $$$ for each reported death.
Yes. Hospitals are pressured to call deaths Covid Cases. I read somewhere they get $$$ for each reported death.
There will be a spike in “10 days” or so anyway, because of all the additional testing that is being put forth in the last couple days. Many many more people will be tested and we will undoubtedly see a spike as a result.
There are definitely people calling this a hoax. Unfortunately I am related to some of them…
However, it’s probably not a large amount, percentage wise. Thus far, between 11 and 12% of the people who have been tested have tested positive in SB county. It has been a VERY high bar to even get tested until recently – you must have had the symptoms AND either be really sick or in a high risk group. Statistically, that means approximately 11-12% of the people who HAD symptoms, and thought they might have COVID-19, probably had COVID-19. Not 100%. Everyone else probably had something else. Those numbers could be slightly higher due to false negatives.
Hoax, no. Scam that be traced all the way back to a CCP lab in Wuhan, yes.
Another rebuttal to these silly accusations: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cdc-guidelines-covid19/
Actually, RHS, the link you provide does indicate many of the deaths being reported on “Line 1” under the guidelines should be reported as COVID-19 whether the victim was tested or not, and if there may be a suspicion by the attending physician that the virus contributed to the death, and thereby contradicting your own claim that the deaths are not being exaggerated (unless I misunderstood your post). The first link from 7:36, which comes directly from the guidelines in the US HHS document also indicates the death should be treated as a COVID death whether confirmed or not. If this wasn’t true, why would many doctors be admitting they are being pressured or advised to report COVID as COD when it was not confirmed? It’s also interesting that a Ventura hospital administrator that is a friend of ours told us he was given direction by the CDC to advise his physicians to list anything possibly related to COVID as directly responsible as the COD. Hmmmnnn….