Hospitals in Santa Barbara County are preparing to implement “crisis care,” as COVID-19 hospitals destroy records on a daily basis.
Crisis assistance means that people with urgent health care needs outside of COVID-19 may not receive the adequate care they would normally expect, according to the county’s public health officer, Dr. Henning Ansorg.
“For example, if someone has a brain bleed and could be rescued by an expert performing a procedure, this may no longer be possible or available just because hospitals are overloaded with patients with COVID,” Ansorg said. at the COVID-19 press conference on Tuesday. .
With a record 172 COVID-19 patients hospitalized on Tuesday, 75% of the hospital beds in the county were in use.
Among COVID-19 hospitalized patients, 55 require intensive care, and 66.3% of ICU beds in the county with staff are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
The county public health department reported 0% “adjusted” availability of ICU for the first time on Tuesday, a level that the Southern California region has maintained for nearly three weeks. The real availability of ICU in the county is 8.4%.
County hospitals are running out of intensive care beds and had to start using emergency beds a few days ago, said public health director Van Do-Reynoso. As of Tuesday, 12 surge beds were used, according to the county’s dashboard.
“Given our current situation, I am at a loss. I honestly don’t know what to say anymore, “said Ansorg, clearly exasperated by the fact that many people do not follow public health orders to avoid gatherings and travel to reduce the spread of the highly contagious disease.
Do-Reynoso also provided an update on the county’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, reporting that 54% of the 16,775 vaccines allocated to the county have already been administered to people eligible for the first phase.
In addition, Santa Barbara County Public Health has received approval from the California Department of Public Health to continue vaccinating all three levels in Phase 1A simultaneously, accelerating the process. This includes the majority of health workers, staff and residents of qualified healthcare facilities, emergency medical staff and dialysis center staff.
Public health has approved 42 suppliers to distribute doses of COVID-19 vaccine, and suppliers are stepping up and working through logistics, Do-Reynoso said.
The county expects to triple the number of providers distributing the vaccine over the next few weeks and generally vaccinate about 1,000 people a day by early February.
The vaccine is likely to become available to the general public by the end of March or April, according to Do-Reynoso.
Public health officials also reported 341 new COVID-19 cases and seven additional deaths on Tuesday. All of those who died were over the age of 70, and four deaths were associated with outbreaks at the gathered housing units, according to Public Health.
Two people lived in Santa Barbara, two lived in Santa Maria, one was from Goleta, one lived in the unincorporated Goleta area and one was from Santa Ynez Valley.
The cumulative balance of COVID-19 county since the beginning of the pandemic is 173.
The number of cases still considered infectious in the entire county exceeded 2,000 and was 2,105 as of Tuesday. There have been 19,019 confirmed cases in Santa Barbara County since the pandemic began.
Testing of positivity rates and daily cases has also reached record highs. The county shows a seven-day positivity rate of 17.3%.
| Santa Barbara County | December 15th | December 22nd | December 29 | January 5th |
| New positive cases reported in the previous week | 1268 | 1445 | 1541 | 2320 |
| New cases among health workers in the previous week | 54 | 84 | 72 | 50 |
| Total test results reported in the previous week | 17.532 | 18.243 | 15.753 | 12,681 |
| COVID-19-positive hospital patients | 78 | 103 | 127 | 172 |
| Active cases (still infectious after positive testing) | 1059 | 1245 | 1227 | 2105 |
| Cumulative deaths related to COVID-19 | 140 | 150 | 156 | 173 |
“All of these values are at their highest level since they started in March last year,” Do-Reynoso said.
The county is only now beginning to see the full effects of COVID-19 transmission on Thanksgiving, Ansorg said, and the impact of the trip and the Christmas gathering will become apparent in the coming weeks.
In addition, there were 28 business outbreaks and 48 outpatient care outbreaks reported in the county in December, Do-Reynoso said.
Business outbreaks have occurred in several industries, including agriculture, administration, retail, manufacturing, medical services, cleaning services, skilled labor, restaurants, bars, grocery stores, hotels and construction.
“I can’t stress enough that this is really an exhortation to every member of our community,” Do-Reynoso said. “Together we can improve and we must.”
County meetings are now conducted virtually, with public and county health officials appearing by videoconference.
Tuesday’s briefing is available for viewing on the Santa Barbara County Youtube page here, with English and Spanish versions.
– Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be contacted at . (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Sign in with Noozhawk on Facebook.