Edhat StaffBy edhat staff
Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (PHD) is reporting an additional death of an individual who tested positive for COVID-19. The individual was over 70 years old with underlying health conditions, and resided in the City of Santa Maria.
Deaths are reported when a death certificate is processed listing COVID-19 as a cause or a significant condition. The process can take several days and up to 2 months to finalize if pending Coroner verification. Total COVID-19 related deaths in Santa Barbara County are now 82.
“Our thoughts and sympathies go out to those who have lost loved ones. As was included in the Governor message today, the more we can follow local Health Officer directives, the more lives we save and the faster we will get to a point where we can further reopen sectors in our communities. Please stay at least 6 feet away from others you do not live with, wear face coverings when outside of your home, and avoid gatherings,” said Van Do-Reynoso, Santa Barbara County Public Health Director.
PHD additionally reports 27 new cases bringing the grand total to 7,508. Of those 230 are currently active. There are 59 total hospitalizations throughout the entire county including 21 intensive care unit cases. More numbers can be found here: https://publichealthsbc.org/status-reports/
Cottage Health-Specific Numbers
COVID-19 Update from Cottage Health – August 19, 2020
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Cottage Health is caring for a total of 278 patients across all campuses.
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224 are acute care patients; 164 acute care beds remain available.
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Of the 224 acute care patients, 12 patients are on ventilators.
78 ventilators remain available (adult, pediatric and neonatal ventilators). -
Of the 224 acute care patients, 25 are in isolation with COVID-19 symptoms;
21 are confirmed COVID-19 positive. -
Of the 25 patients in isolation, 9 patients are in critical care.
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From August 3–9:
2,803 COVID-19 laboratory tests were collected by Cottage Health.
Results: 137 positive, 2,666 negative -
From August 10–16:
2,453 COVID-19 laboratory tests were collected by Cottage Health.
Results: 113 positive, 2,340 negative, 255 pending
Wow! The SBPHD just uploaded 6056 results today, and only 27 were positive. The huge number of negatives in today’s upload has pushed down our positivity % dramatically, and is going a long way to get us below the 100 cases/100,000 over 14-day metric. That’s great news. The bad news is the new death has pushed the mortality up to 1.31%
No, the bad news is that people in Santa Maria have lost a beloved husband or wife, mother or father, grandmother or grandfather, or other family member or dear friend, and that they possibly passed years before they would have, if this country had handled the pandemic with even a modicum of competence. That is the bad news. May they Rest In Peace.
@ 10:50 PM: “…if this country had handled the pandemic with even a modicum of competence.” By competence, do you mean like Sweden, the model of ideal socialized health care the progressives are always touting? To put things into perspective, Sweden has 584 deaths/million people, while the USA has only 530 deaths/million people. Or by competence, do you mean we should’ve imposed martial law, as some countries did, and literally lock people in their homes until they died or managed to recover, or take them by gunpoint to some undisclosed place where they simply disappear? In this country we try to balance freedom with personal responsibility. We also respect states’ rights while simultaneously governing at the federal level. It’s complex, as there are trade offs in a free society. Let’s say this country handled the pandemic with more than a modicum of competence and wiped out COVID with the fewest cases and deaths of any country on the planet. For that to remain so, we would have had to completely isolate ourselves from countries that were unable or unwilling to adopt the modicum of competence you urge. Would you be okay with that?
And yet if you look at the performance of the majority of countries that do not base their healthcare on the profit motive, they have done remarkably well in caring for their populace. Nothing like cherry picking an anecdotal data point to try to make a case that our pitiful national pandemic response was somehow exemplary, just to satisfy your preconceived world view.
CSF, way to pick Sweden. No, that’s not the example. Denmark, NZ, Japan, Germany…many other countries handled it soooo much better than we did.