Edhat Staff
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By edhat staff
An additional 19 confirmed coronavirus cases were announced Friday, bringing Santa Barbara County’s grand total to 373.
Santa Barbara County Public Health Officials stated of the 373 cases, 157 people are recovering at home, 152 people have fully recovered, 43 people are hospitalized with 14 of them in the intensive care unit (ICU), and there have been 3 deaths.
During the press conference Supervisor Gregg Hart urged community members to express their frustration with social distancing in a constructive way when asked how the county would handle protests that have popped up throughout the nation.
“The idea of a mass demonstration is extremely irresponsible behavior and should be discouraged in no uncertain terms,” said Hart.
He encouraged the community to use their voice by calling in for public comment to express their views during the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.
Of the new cases that ranged in age from under 17 years old to over 70 years old, six of the cases are related to the outbreak at the Lompoc Prison. Currently, there are 80 inmates and 30 staff members infected.
Public Health stated they are continuing to support the Bureau of Prisons in the management and mitigation at the Lompoc facility. Their three-pronged approach remains the same as previously reported on edhat. First they’re assisting with monitoring symptomatic staff members, second they’re tracking the outbreak and using modeling to draft estimates and projections while consulting with prison leadership, third they’re working to develop an onsite medical facility.
Ventura and SLO Counties
San Luis Obispo County announced Friday the Executive Order to Shelter at Home will remain in effect until May 16, 2020. It will be reviewed again in 14 days.
“Our goal is to be ready when the Governor lifts the State’s Order and transitions all authority back to local officials,” SLO County Emergency Services Director Wade Horton said. “With our order in place concurrent with the State’s order, we still have some local control over what we can do. If we lift our order, we are completely under the State’s authority.”
SLO County officials are reporting 127 confirmed cases. Of those, 107 have fully recovered, 16 are recovering at home, 3 are hospitalized, and there has been 1 death.
Ventura County is reporting 396 total cases. Of those, 198 have fully recovered, 188 are under quarantine at home, 21 are hospitalized with 8 of those in the ICU, and there have been 13 deaths. Of all the cities in Ventura County, Simi Valley and Oxnard have been the areas with the biggest number of cases.
As of 5:00 p.m. Friday, Ventura County reopened its parks, however, playgrounds, tennis courts, community centers, campgrounds and golf courses will remain closed.
“Our parks and open spaces are wonderful places for our community members to enjoy. This is one step on the road to reopening. We are so grateful for the sacrifices made by so many during this time. We appreciate that those steps helped save lives and helped lead us to a place where we can now reopen these great facilities. We thank our community members for continuing to follow the guidance by the Public Health Department so that we can continue to reopen even more facilities throughout our County,” said Mike Powers, County of Ventura CEO.
Cottage Health Numbers
Below is a status update as of April 17, 2020.
· Cottage Health is caring for a total of 196 patients across all campuses.
· 147 are acute care patients; 226 acute care beds remain available.
· In surge planning, capacity is identified for adding 270 acute care beds.
· Of the 147 patients, 11 patients are on ventilators; 54 ventilators remain available (adult, pediatric and neonatal ventilators)
· Of the 147 patients, 17 are in isolation with COVID-19 symptoms; 14 are confirmed COVID-19 positive.
· Of 17 patients in isolation, 9 patients are in critical care.
· Cottage has collected 2,033 cumulative test samples: 165 resulted in positive, 1,789 resulted in negative, and 79 are pending. In most of these tests, patients did not require hospital admission.
They keep forgetting to include the link to the dashboard: *** https://publichealthsbc.org/dashboard/ ***
That the number of people infected without being accounted for in testing is possibly 50-85% higher than estimated which I think means, death rate goes down?
why should this article be a reason to draw conclusions? it’s a single county, a sample size of only 3300…. and it’s claims are just as outlandish as the initial CV death estimates. major leaps of assumption…. needs more reproduction in more areas before it is meaningful data.
XANTUS I think most ppl realize this is a sample of one county and not perfect however, it’s a start and it confirms what many have been suspecting for awhile now. I know ppl who likely had this even as far back as January so that would be the next study I hope – how long it really was here.
Except – the study doesn’t confirm anything of the sort.
The study authors are very careful to state (start citation):
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This study had several limitations. First, our sampling strategy selected for members of Santa Clara County with access to Facebook and a car to attend drive-through testing sites. This resulted in an over-representation of white women between the ages of 19 and 64, and an under-representation of Hispanic and Asian populations, relative to our community. Those imbalances were partly addressed by weighting our sample population by zip code, race, and sex to match the county. We did not account for age imbalance in our sample, and could not ascertain representativeness of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in homeless populations. Other biases, such as a bias favoring individuals in good health capable of attending our testing sites, or bias favoring those with prior COVID-like illnesses seeking antibody confirmation are also possible. The overall effect of such biases is hard to ascertain.
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The Premier Biotech serology test used in this study has not been approved by the FDA by the time of the study, and validation studies for this assay are ongoing. We used existing test performance data to establish a range of sensitivity and specificity, including reliable but small-size data sourced at Stanford. Test sensitivity varied between the manufacturer’s data and the local data. It is possible that asymptomatic or mildly asymptomatic individuals may generate only low-titer antibodies, and that sensitivity may be even lower if there are many such cases. Additional validation of the assays used could improve our estimates and those of ongoing serosurveys.
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(end citation)
If they undercounted because of false negatives from the test, then the prevalence of infection was higher. If they overcounted, the prevalence of infection was lower. A large prevalence of infection is not a surprise, since we know the virus is very contagious, but claims by commenters that it had been circulating for months must explain why hospitals did not see an influx of severe respiratory cases during that time. Also, of the 3,330 people tested in the study, a full 18% (612) were children, and thus more likely have a test result matching that of the family member that brought them. That would bias the results.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/health/as-officials-plan-to-reopen-the-economy-a-key-unknown-remains-how-deadly-is-the-coronavirus/2020/04/17/0bd2f938-7e49-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html%3foutputType=amp
Best part of the article: “He encouraged the community to use their voice by calling in for public comment to express their views during the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.” We, the people, do have a voice.
The first case wasn’t reported in California until the end of January.