San Luis Obispo County added nearly 900 new cases of COVID-19 in part of the holiday weekend, bringing the county’s total number to 11,284 confirmed cases starting Jan. 4.
On New Year’s Day, 559 cases were reported, and on Saturday, 327 cases.
Totals for Sunday and Monday are not currently available, according to the San Luis Obispo Department of Public Health, because the state’s database, CalREDIE, is facing an outage.
County health officials say the new cases added over the weekend include the rest of last week’s arrears in cases. The remaining cases in the state database were attributed to a change in the way the state assigns suspicious cases to counties.
Health officials say the arrears have now been eliminated, but it is unknown when the interruption with CalREDIE will be resolved.
They say the problem does not affect the number of cases requiring hospitalization or deaths reported locally, as these data are assessed separately.
Currently, 49 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in San Luis Obispo County, including 13 patients who are in the ICU. Another 2,417 people are recovering at home, and health officials say 8,714 people have recovered.
According to the online dashboard COVID-19 of the state of California, there are currently 22 ICU beds available in San Luis Obispo County.
San Luis Obispo County also reports the deaths of six more people who tested positive for COVID-19.
Health officials say the patients were between 60 and 100 years old.
San Luis Obispo County had 88 deaths attributed to COVID-19.
Forty-four of these deaths occurred in December. Forty percent of all county cases were reported in December.
Health officials say that as the number of cases has risen sharply in the past few weeks, it is likely that more people have been exposed to the virus.
Breakdown of cases by location:
- Paso Robles – 2,453
- San Luis Obispo – 2,303
- Atascadero – 992
- 941. Arroyo Grande
- California Men’s Colony (Detainees) – 830
- Nipomo – 770
- Grover Beach – 485
- Ocean – 394
- Templeton – 342
- San Miguel – 307
- Poly Horse (campus residents) – 256
- Bears – 246
- Gulf of Morro – 219
- Pismo Beach – 175
- Atascadero State Hospital (patients) – 139
- Shandon – 94
- Saint Margaret – 87
- Cambria – 80
- Creston – 50
- Cayucos – 44
- Avila Beach – 15
- San Simeon – 8
- Shell Beach – 7
The location of an additional 38 cases is under investigation, and another nine are listed as “other”, which includes communities with less than five cases. The Department of Public Health does not identify these locations.
COVID-19 community testing sites are currently open to the public in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Morro Bay, Grover Beach and Nipomo.
Appointments are required in all locations. Click here to schedule an appointment.
For more information on the county’s COVID-19 response, visit readyslo.org.