Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
On Wednesday, Santa Barbara County Public Health (PHD) announced 10 new cases drawing the total confirmed COVID-19 count to 228 within the county.
SBC Public Health Numbers
The ages of the 10 new cases range from their 30s to over 70. Of the 228 total confirmed patients, 112 are recovering at home, 69 have fully recovered, 37 are hospitalized with 17 of those in the intensive care unit (ICU), 8 are pending, and there have been 2 deaths. The full set of data on each patient can be found here.
Santa Barbara County Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg stated that as we continue to see an increase of confirmed cases throughout the county, it is following a linear pathway and has not evolved into an exponential pattern, which he was initially worried about.
“The fact that our numbers are increasing along such a linear path is reassuring and is a direct result of our community’s concerted effort to slow down the spread of the novel-coronavirus and flatten the curve of cases,” said Dr. Ansorg. “With this development, I now can comfortably state that we as a county are meeting our ongoing goal with our efforts to limit the spread as much as possible in our geographic area.”
Dr. Ansorg reminded the community not to waiver and continue to wear a face covering, stay home, practice social distancing and good hygiene.
Clarification of Penn Modeling
Chair of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors Gregg Hart and Santa Barbara County Health Department Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso clarified questions regarding the Penn Model used at Tuesday’s Supervisor meeting.
“The most important take away [from the model presentation] was to show the powerful effectiveness physical distancing can have on stopping the spread of the virus, flattening the infection curve, and reducing the patient surge to our medical system,” said County Supervisor Gregg Hart.
He continued to emphasize the graphs were intended to illustrate how different levels of physical distancing can dramatically flatten the infection curve and potentially match up the capacity with our medical system. The graphs show a direct connection between what each of us is doing to stop the spread of the virus and the lives that will be saved if we continue and even get better at social distancing.
“This is very good news,” said Hart. “The more we reduce infections, the better our medical system can treat patients. It’s that simple.”
Dr. Do-Reynoso also emphasized the nature of models is not for rigid predictions but instead as planning tools. Based on the model, it’s clear how much social distancing impacts the capacity of healthcare facilities, and that’s what they’re planning for. She stated the model will produce different dates as real-time data is continuously updated.
Cottage Health Numbers
Below is a status update as of April 8, 2020.
· Cottage is caring for 135 patients; 238 beds remain available.
· In surge planning, capacity is identified for adding 270 acute care beds.
· Of the 135 patients, 13 patients are on ventilators; 47 ventilators remain available (adult, pediatric and neonatal ventilators)
· Of the 135 patients, 14 patients are in isolation with confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis.
· Of the 14 patients in isolation, 7 patients are in critical care.
· Cottage has collected 1,428 cumulative test samples: 111 resulted in positive, 1,219 resulted in negative, and 98 are pending
Ventura and SLO Counties
As of Wednesday evening, Ventura County is reporting 20 new cases for a total of 263 confirmed cases. Of the 263, there are 96 recovered cases, 52 that were ever hospitalized with 17 of those currently in the ICU, 160 under home quarantine, and 7 deaths. Of the 7 deaths, 5 were people in their 70s and 2 were in their 80s, all with preexisting health conditions.
In San Luis Obispo County, there are 102 confirmed cases with 25 recovering at home, 73 fully recovered, 3 in the ICU, and 1 death.
The following infected individual appears to have been conveniently left off the list of new cases in the county, presumably because the student took their items and left town. Being positive, anywhere in this town, for any length of time, should count in my opinion. This part of a letter that Chancellor Henry Yang sent out to the UCSB community today:
April 7, 2020
Dear Members of Our Campus Community,
I am writing to share that our campus has been informed of what seems to be the first case of COVID-19 among our student population. A student who left campus on Tuesday, March 17, for spring break has reported testing positive for COVID-19. During the break, the student reported experiencing symptoms consistent with COVID-19. Following two weeks of self-quarantine and over a week with no symptoms, the student returned to campus on Friday, April 3, for about two hours in order to remove personal belongings from their room in Santa Cruz Residence Hall. After returning home, the student received notice that they tested positive.
The student’s visit to campus on April 3 was brief, and they reported not interacting with or coming into contact with anyone from our campus. The student, whose roommates left campus prior to spring break, reported spending time in their residence only, wearing a face covering, diligently practicing social distancing, washing and sanitizing hands frequently, and touching only their own personal belongings. We are cleaning and sanitizing both the student’s room and the common areas, and we have contacted public health officials.
conveniently left off the list? Is this a contest or something? Oh no, the is only 228 people when there should be 229!! Out of the entire county thanks to everyone’s compliance and sacrifice.
Quarantined for two weeks and without symptoms for a week before getting his/her belongings. So, what’s your beef?
Ok, so basically we have NO new cases in SB itself? It’s north county, and specifically the prison outbreak?
My problem is that the time frame described doesn’t add up. Including Mar. 17 and Apr. 3, the student is gone from the residence hall for 18 days, yet it’s described in that 18 days that they leave and become sick, spend two weeks quarantined AND one week without symptoms. Just the quarantine and week without symptoms is 21 days, which is more days than they were supposedly out of the residence hall. That’s just the start of my problem with this letter. Clearly there’s a concern on the part of the university about the activities of this possibly still infectious student or they wouldn’t be sanitizing, contacting public health officials, and sending out the email. It appears they’re bracing for the possibility this infected student may have infected others in the community, hence my opinion that this case should be added to the total. Most people on Edhat, and the country in general, state they want more testing, and that officials have failed on that, and now we have a positive that you don’t should be counted?
You act like one person doesn’t matter. Apparently you’re not familiar with the concept of “R naught”.
These numbers are very inaccurate. You CAN NOT get a test unless you are either very important, a health care professional or pretty much being admitted to the hospital. Tests are still VERY limited. I was very sick for 6+ days with many covid-19 symptoms starting on March 26th. My wife and two daughters also experianced symptoms but luckily were much more mild then mine. Two doctors said I was highly likely covid positive but there were no tests available for us. Hang in they’re everyone and have a great night!
Without actual testing we don’t know for sure.
To quote my favorite film
Oskar Schindler:
Look, All you have to do is tell me what it’s worth to you. What’s a person worth to you?
Amon Goeth:
No, no, no, No. What’s one worth to you!
Right on OOPS! The “models” predicted hundreds of thousands of deaths, and now that’s revised down to 60,000?!?! These models are all nonsense. They are nothing more than calculations based on guesses at how the virus spreads, how many people are infected, and so on. Garbage in, garbage out as the saying goes. These models are now proven to be dramatically inaccurate. We have shut down our economy and inflicted catastrophic economic harm based on this demonstrably false modeling. This needs to stop now! We are already up to the highest unemployment rate since the great depression and we are going to break that record if we keep this “isolation” up much longer. Forget the virus, we need to stop the spread of unemployment! I read an article that explained the lethal damage from the corona virus in many cases is caused by an out of control response from the immune system rather than by the virus itself. Similarly, our government’s response to the virus is like an overreacting immune system that is going to destroy us in the name of trying to protect us. The cure is worse than the disease!
Projections can change from day to day. Covid 19 is still incredibly dangerous
Sorry. There should have been a colon after film
Not sure why people didn’t like this. It seemed like an appropriate quote.
Please stop spreading dangerous bs
The latest numbers from John’s Hopkins indicate that about 95,000 people have now died as a result of the corona virus. Now, the AP reports that something like 500,000,000 people around the world will be driven into poverty as a result of our response to the virus. https://apnews.com/b219627e31d87779e5253f9a072be4dc—–This will almost certainly result in the deaths of far more than 100,000 people, and this is only the beginning of the economic fallout. The economic damage will increase exponentially every day we continue with “isolation” policies. These policies also have the potential to kill much more directly. In Uganda, Reuters reports that women are dying from childbirth because “travel ban” policies are preventing them from reaching medical care. https://news.trust.org/item/20200409135823-9awyd/ I fear this story is also the tip of the iceberg.
That doesn’t mean you should downplay Coronavirus
And you should not downplay driving 500,000,000 people into poverty worldwide which will cause more death and destruction than the corona virus!
I’m not. Coronavirus is vastly untreatable right now which is what’s so dangerous about it.
CHIP – if we did nothing, there would be far more the 500mil people (source please?) in poverty. You and others don’t seem to understand the simple facts here. This is a potential PLAGUE. No matter what we do, it’s here, it’s deadly and it’s incurable. If we do nothing, then many many will die, if we do something, just many will die. You see how that works? We’re screwed no matter what, but if we make an effort, then we can lose less people. Is that the “hardworking,” bootstrap-pulling anti-liberals are just lazy and don’t want to make the effort to spare as many as possible? What’s your reasoning here?
I agree, there is no proven treatment for the corona virus at this time. Even getting the full hospital ICU treatment and being put on a ventilator seems to have a very low impact on surviaval rate. However, the fatality rate from the corona virus is relatively low overall and even the the “models” now indicate it will be comparable to a flu season. On the other hand, starvation is entirely preventable, civil unrest is preventable, and war is preventable. If we get everyone back to work NOW, we might have still have a chance at preventing the worst of these outcomes around the world. If we persist with “social isolation” much longer, then God help us…
It is definitely not low. And this is worse than the flu. Now is not the time to go back to work. The death toll has gone up by almost 3,000 today in the us
Please consider the statistics section of this webpage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starvation#Starvation_statistics —-I would encourage you to contemplate how these numbers will change in response to a global economic depression. I appreciate that everyone wants to sacrifice, pitch in, and help save lives. However, destroying the economy will cost lives rather than save lives.
We are not ready to reopen the economy
An interesting article from an association of physicians and surgeons. I don’t know anything about that organization. The article takes a position contrary to the hysteria that has paralyzed society. Perhaps it’s time to start to open some things up and allow the natural benefit of “herd immunity” bring an end to the propagation of the virus? I didn’t fully understand what herd immunity was until I read this article. *** https://aapsonline.org/cornoavirus-covid-19-public-health-apocalypse-or-panic-hoax-and-anti-american/
I think these numbers should provide quite a bit of comfort to those of us who are concerned about “catching” this virus. Listening to the news reports on TV really made me think that this pandemic was d-e-f-i-n-i-t-l-y going to affect up to 50% of us. It appeared that the tv news folks relished the horrible, but incorrect, numbers. Chris Cuomo of CNN really milking every last drop of attention he can garner. BTW, if you’ve not seen Chris Cuomo interview his brother Gov. Andrew Cuomo, it’s quite entertaining to see their opposite realities collide.
This is what worries me. Please don’t be comfortable. My husband and I got Covid 19 in Colorado and has early symptoms now identified as typical but we didn’t know that then. We have had varying, intermittent and some extreme–but not dire symptoms. We did not try to be tested as I have a pulmonologist as a brother and he monitored us several times a day at a distance and said it was unmistakeable. Boy, it was and has been like an alien body invasion. Yes there are other things going around but there are also people untested who have it and those who are asymptomatic. Please don’t relax yet. We do not have accurate data given our lack of testing. We are nowhere near the peak here.
my how things change, first could be 1 million dead, then 260,000-300,000, now less than 60,000. This is going to be nothing worse then a regular flu year…and we shut down the freakin economy over nothing!!
OOPS – it’s BECAUSE we shut down everything that the numbers are lower than anticipated. How do you not understand that? The high numbers were based on if we did nothing. Those numbers were the impetus for shutting everything down.
You must have missed the part about how much more deadly this virus (like 10 times) is than the regular flu and a vaccine will not be available for at least a year or more.
BullSH*T, CA shut down the same time as others. CA numbers are down because we have already gone through the first phase of this virus during Oct – December.
still doesn’t justify the shutting down the economy
OOPS – how many deaths justify it? Do you have a number for us? At what point is human life more important to you than money?
Your logic is like if you have a wildfire burning you shouldn’t bother trying to protect and save lives/property. Just let it burn everything in its path and it will work itself out. Right?
I didn’t say that. I did say that the number of deaths does not warrant shutting down the entire economy. Check the CDC website to see how many Americans die each year and how they die:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
Ah you again. You’re very welcome to come by and check us out. I know people say they have it and don’t. Ask my pulmonary doc and he will tell you. We were in a hot spot in CO and came back with all symptoms and intermittent terrible ones for almost a month. I understand people with coughs and fever worry and they should but we Also had the intestinal issues and horrid intermittent aches. It was not like a normal disease path. I would appreciate not being second guessed. I wish you were right but sadly you are not. Stay inside and it’s for everyone’a protection. And we will get the antibody test soon but not through channels here! I will take a $500 bet I had it and who loses gives it to the Food Bank. You on?
BECAUSE we shut down the economy, it wasn’t as deadly as it would have been. If you cut down a tree that is precariously leaning over your house, does that mean it wouldn’t have fallen during a coming storm?
How much is each life worth Ooops? How much is your life worth?
60,000 was the prediction I made on 3/17 .
Again, these stats are rubbish without testing occurring.
Horrid intermittent aches are common symptoms of flu, and even colds for many people.
Please realize that Wikipedia is NOT a reliable source of data