SBC Public Health
Source: Santa Barbara County Public Health Department
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department has received confirmation of additional cases of monkeypox in two local adults. The community members currently remain in isolation. Public Health has completed contact tracing with these persons to identify anyone who may have had close contact with them. Persons identified in contact tracing are being monitored for symptoms and appropriate public health interventions are being taken. Risk to the public remains low. There are three confirmed cases of monkeypox in Santa Barbara County at this time.
“As we continue to identify cases of monkeypox locally, it is important for our community to understand how this virus spreads and how it does not spread,” shared County Health Officer, Dr. Henning Ansorg. “This virus most commonly spreads through prolonged, direct physical contact with someone who is currently infectious. It is highly unlikely to spread through short interactions that do not involve physical contact.”
Monkeypox spreads in different ways. The virus can spread from person-to-person through:
- Direct contact with the infectious rash, scabs, or body fluids
- Respiratory secretions during prolonged, face-to-face contact, or during intimate physical contact, such as kissing, cuddling, or sex
- Touching items (such as clothing or linens) that previously touched the infectious rash or body fluids
- Pregnant people can spread the virus to their fetus through the placenta
Symptoms of monkeypox usually begin one to two weeks after infection. They can include:
- Fever
- Headache
- Muscle aches and backache
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Chills
- Exhaustion
- Respiratory symptoms (e.g. sore throat, nasal congestion, or cough)
- A rash that can look like pimples or blisters that appears on the face, inside the mouth, and on other parts of the body, like the hands, feet, chest, genitals, or anus.
- The rash goes through different stages before healing completely.
Santa Barbara County health officials continue to work closely with state health partners in procuring more vaccine for local communities. Additional requests for vaccines have been approved and County Public Health expects to receive more doses soon for known close contacts of confirmed monkeypox cases and individuals with certain risk factors, such as people who attended an event where there was a known monkeypox exposure.
Anyone who may have been exposed to monkeypox and/or has symptoms consistent with monkeypox should contact their healthcare provider as soon as possible or contact County Public Health at 805-681-5280 or PHDDiseaseControl@sbcphd.org.
Cases will be reported on the County Public Health Monkeypox webpage on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For the most up-to-date information about monkeypox prevention, vaccination, and seeking care in Santa Barbara County, visit the County Public Health Monkeypox webpage.
Kinda bullshit for them not to let us know what parts of Santa Barbara county these cases were reported in…you know, so we can have a little information to protect ourselves?
It’s not like saying ‘Santa Maria’ or ‘Montecito’ gives away the identity of the patients currently suffering from monkey pox in our area.
So stupid. Way to endanger us for no intelligent reason. No wonder our county’s public health department is so bad at preventing the spread of communicable disease.
Oh yeah, that’s clearly the logical outcome of what I wrote.
You do realize that SB county public health provides that info—city, age, sex, race—in its publicly available COVID data, and it’s hardly led to the mass outing of private individuals you seem to fear.
Giving us more of the pertinent information that would help to keep us all safe is just common sense.
Why stop there? Why not demand to know which street they live on? Or their sexual orientation? Race? Initials of their name? Height and weight? Restaurants frequented? Color of car they drive?
Public health officials closed churches and schools and left open marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores while preventing us from seeing our grandparents due to covid. But now they’re too PC to inform us of the very specific demographic for which 99% of Monkey Pox cases occur (per CDC) nor recommend this very specific group refrain from anything let alone the very thing that the CDC found 94% of the cases participated in. This is exactly why trust in our public health officials is at an all time low. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7132e3.htm
Cool, let’s bring back AIDS-era homophobia.
I know its hard for a fly, but its NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS what other people do or with whom they do it with… You hold NO RIGHT to demand any other human define themselves as anything.
SBO: You are absolutely correct! No one’s biz what and with whom you are doing…period! On the other hand, there’s no need for the vast majority of folks to worry about monkeypox. Most people are curious, and simply want to know if they are at risk, and the answer is no, but the CDC and WHO are freaking out a lot of people who do not need to be freaked out. Someone asked me about monkeypox, and I told them the reports of who and why people are getting it, and they were completely relieved. Keep doing whatever you want to do, but please be honest enough to be open about this disease. Simple request is all that is my friends. Simple request.
It’s called focused priorities. Protect the most vulnerable. For MP, it’s 99% gay men. For Covid, it’s 90% elderly and those with multiple comorbidities. Did we not learn anything from the last 3 years?
I TOTALLY AGREE SBO BUT WOW!!!! That’s the EXACT OPPOSITE position you and many others here took during covid!! Remember when we threw personal rights out the window, arbitrarily closed small businesses (but not weed and booze, it’s essential!) disregarded focused protection and closed schools/parks/beaches/youth sports anyway, and shammed / ostracized even threatened with violence and taking away health care and JOBS from those who didn’t want to get the vaccine??? You had no problem demanding others take the vaccine (a vaccine many knew back then didn’t stop transmission), no problem closing other peoples businesses down, no problem with the vaccine hesitant getting fired, no problem forcing others not to congregate (except for protests, well as long as it was a BLM protest and not a covid restrictions protest) – what happened to “NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS what other people do or with whom they do it with” then? Such a hypocrite….
VOR, you are right! My comment regarding this very topic was taken down today! It has NOTHING to do with hate or anything like that but isn’t it relevant to let people know that unless you are in this group, it’s extremely unlikely that you will contact Monkey Pox. For crying out loud!
SB Surfer, we’ve come a long long way from then, that was 40 years ago. No one cares anymore if someone is gay or straight.
Yes @4:20 — too many these days put feelings over facts to the detriment of everyone.
4:27 – That’s really ironic, coming from you.
Trust in our public health officials is only low among the willfully ignorant.
SB Surfer, none of my past comments would leave any rational person to believe that I would care about to anyone’s sexual preferences – but the irrational, misplaced, and undeserved responses to my comments may have given you that misperception. Please also note that the GOP does not equal the “right-wing extremists” you cited in those links, incidents that are exceedingly rare but do occur as there are still plenty of hateful people out there that reside throughout the political spectrum. The DNC has plenty of hateful/violent “left-wing extremists” too, as was clearly displayed in 2020, yet they don’t define the DNC.
Lord. I can only imagine how someone like you would react if a dread infectious disease, like Marberg, say, ever mutated to become extremely infectious and had a 90% mortality rate…and came to these shores, spreading like wildfire. You best believe you’ll be living under martial law and then you’ll REALLY know what it’s like to have your freedoms curtailed.
As it was, the novel coronavirus was (and still is) a public health emergency that we had no natural immunity to in 2020 and no vaccines or anti-viral treatments. And you were asked to make a few sacrifices to protect yourself and your neighbors, the most vulnerable among us, especially.
But I guess that’s too much to ask of a freedom-loving individual like yourself. As a result, a million of our fellow citizens are dead. The selfishness of this society will be our doom.
Mugsy, the flaw in your logic is the assumption that further mandates, restrictions and lockdowns would have prevented those deaths in any measurable way. Other countries tried that approach and failed. With the deaths being predominantly in the elderly and overweight, we would have saved more lives if we focused on isolating and supported the elderly, and encouraged everyone else to go outside, exercise and eat healthy? With obesity a known risk factor for severe covid illness, how many times did any public health departments, CDC or WHO encourage people to get outside, exercise and eat healthy over the past 2.5 years? – ZERO Instead we closed beaches, gyms, parks, trails, even arrested a lone paddleboarder out in the ocean…. crazy….
Wow! New CDC guidance acknowledges several things that many here have claimed was “misinformation” and “FUD”, and caused many deleted posts, are actually… TRUE.
-Prior infection provides immunity.
-6 feet distancing was arbitrary.
-Vaccinations help prevent severe illness but don’t stop infection, same exposure recommendations for vaccinated and unvaccinated.
-Focus should be on protecting those at most severe risk for illness.
-Conditions that increase risks include overweight and obesity.
-Most importantly, acknowledges the scientific missteps in prior guidance: “This revision does not go anywhere near enough to correct the problems of flawed recommendations and lack of evidence,” said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California .
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/11/health/cdc-covid-guidance-update/index.html
Your usual cognitive dissonance message:
Throughout the past years of this pandemic – The CDC doesn’t know what it’s doing.
When they modify guidance as conditions improved because of their previous guidance, to something you like – The CDC knows what it’s doing.
No one on the left side of the aisle you mean. The right side is chock full of LGBTQ haters. Because their God told them so.
Are you an unpaid intern with RT, or something? You seem to be spouting their lines.
Vor (Russian slang for gang member/thief): We’ve been over this a thousand times but schools and churches have many dozens of people in close proximity in enclosed places. Stores have many visitors but not everyone comes in at the same time. One man’s dispensary or liquor store is another’s medical necessity or closest store for several miles. Have you worked/volunteered in a school? They’re germ factories. Many parents unfortunately need their kids to be there and don’t make them stay home sick bc both are working and a sitter is too pricey. Also, if people are being “censored” so much, why don’t they stop spewing the same nonsense? Lol
Cognitive dissonance? The CDC now says that due to breakthrough infections AND natural immunity there is no reason to treat the vaccinated and unvaccinated differently. People were banned and censored, even here, for pointing this out over the past year and half – people lost their jobs as a result. Don’t forget people were censored for saying exactly what the CDC is saying now. That is the only cognitive dissonance here.
How many times does a sensational political claim turn out to be a hoax, a “conspiracy theory” turn out to be true, “misinformation” turns out to be fact, before you stop and think maybe you’re not right all the time? It was just the last few months the regulars here were claiming natural immunity wasn’t a thing, last year it was covid vaccines prevent infection, and now the CDC is finally reflecting that same reality. The “science” never changed, the political science and psychology did.
Is it the democrats or Repugnicans currently calling for a civil war? Which politicians are making calls for physical action? The GOP is a cesspool of extremism fueled by propaganda filled hate. The GOP is a hate group and an extremist entity.
GT, I’m not a republican, and I think based on reading many of your previous comments on this site you should ask yourself if you yourself are a hater.
@SB8BALL- The only HATE I see spewing from editorials is the Left HATING on someone who has a differing point of view… Take a look at yourselves.
I agree, public health officials should be straightforward with who is at risk. That’s not shaming anyone. It’s called honesty. Anything else is going to freak out people who rely on these public health officials to inform them and don’t understand for themselves what’s really happening. If you can’t handle that M.O. and are reckoning back to the AIDS crisis decades ago, well, you need to move past that.
People that are overly promiscuous are always the ones that get the bad bugs. AIDS now monkeypox. It’s always been that way. If you don’t want to get it be monogamous for a few years. Stop trolling the bars and the conventions for love. Luckily we only have three cases in a county of 448,000 people. Statistically, a very very small number of people. Minuscule. Really is not a big deal. Get to know who you love, for a while, and you probably will be spared. Clean up your act!