Edhat StaffBy edhat staff
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (PHD) announced 21 newly confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) cases bringing the total to 334 during a press conference on Wednesday.
Of the 334 total cases, 144 are recovering at home, 134 have fully recovered, 38 are hospitalized with 15 of those cases in the intensive care unit (ICU), and there have been 2 deaths.
PHD Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg stated there is an ongoing increase of cases, however, it remains linear and the hospitalization rate remains stable.
Outbreak at Lompoc Prison
The COVID-19 outbreak at the Federal Penitentiary in Lompoc continues with two additional cases reported today. Currently, there are 68 inmates who have tested positive including 13 hospitalizations, 2 of which are in the ICU. Additionally, 25 staff members tested positive with 1 hospitalization.
PHD Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso confirmed they are assisting prison officials with disease control and mitigation, coordinating medical services on prison grounds, and testing symptomatic staff members.
The Bureau of Prisons is working to stand up a field hospital for a private healthcare provider to operate within the next 8 to 14 days. They are planning for 11 rooms with the potential to expand to 100 beds.
Dr. Do-Reynoso stated the goal of increasing healthcare at the prison is to prevent overwhelming local hospitals as every inmate admitted to the hospital is accompanied by one or two guards.
Additionally, Rep. Salud Carbajal, Senator Kamala D. Harris, and Senator Dianne Feinstein sent a letter today to the Federal Bureau of Prisons urging further action to prevent the spread of coronavirus within the Lompoc prison. The letter urges expedited approval of the facility’s request to quickly establish a mobile hospital as well as their request for further personal protective equipment (PPE) for workers.
Closing Beaches?
PHD officials were asked why Santa Barbara County has not followed surrounding county’s lead by closing beaches as there have been reports of large crowds gathering at Carpinteria State Beach and Hendry’s.
Officials stated they were unaware of such large gatherings and obviously do not want groups of people mingling closely, however, if there is adequate space between people it shouldn’t be a problem.
It’s important to think of people’s mental health and parents with children, if it’s a big beach with small family units I don’t see a problem from a health perspective, said Dr. Ansorg.
If there are incidents of people not adhering to social distancing rules, call law enforcement.
Testing Kits
The PHD Lab shared a video depicting the process of Tier 1 testing for five of the local hospitals. The video is available below:
Ventura and SLO Counties
San Luis Obispo County is reporting a total of 124 confirmed cases, of that total, 104 have fully recovered, 16 are isolating at home, 3 are hospitalized, and there has been 1 death.
Ventura County is reporting a total of 365 confirmed cases, of that total, 186 are isolating at home, 166 have fully recovered, 68 are hospitalized, and there have been 13 deaths.
Cottage Health Numbers
Below is a status update as of April 15, 2020.
· Cottage Health is caring for a total of 206 patients across all campuses.
· 154 are acute care patients; 219 acute care beds remain available.
· In surge planning, capacity is identified for adding 270 acute care beds.
· Of the 154 patients, 12 patients are on ventilators; 52 ventilators remain available (adult, pediatric and neonatal ventilators)
· Of the 154 patients, 18 are in isolation with COVID-19 symptoms; 14 are confirmed COVID-19 positive.
· Of 18 patients in isolation, 8 patients are in critical care.
· Cottage has collected 1,881 cumulative test samples: 154 resulted in positive, 1,651 resulted in negative, and 76 are pending. In most of these tests, patients did not require hospital admission.
Compiled data on inpatient care for COVID-19:
Cottage Health is tracking data for COVID-19 inpatient care being provided at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital (SBCH). As of April 15, a total of 32 patients have been hospitalized for COVID-19 care at SBCH; 18 of those patients have been discharged after hospitalization. One patient has died. For discharged patients, the average length of hospital stay was 8.2 days. For patients on ventilators in critical care, the average length of time on a ventilator was 9.7 days.
Regarding the paragraph “Closing Beaches?” … I did my usual weekend bike ride last Saturday down State Street, along the waterfront up to Wilcox, then over to Elings and back home via the Mission. There were noticeably more cyclists on the road than the last 4 weekends. Some were wearing masks/Buffs. Interestingly the latest Bicycle Retailer’s Report stated that low/mid-cost bike sales have been on the rise during the pandemic. Ledbetter, Shoreline, La Mesa Park, Wilcox, and Hendry’s seemed busier than last week but I didn’t see much crowding – surprise given it was Easter Weekend. The worst crowding was again at Mission Park (Rose Garden). I was surprised at all the groups (many obviously not families) who were not social distancing despite all the signs that had been put up. Is blindness a symptom of COVID-19? Over at Rocky Nook, parking was about half full but I didn’t see many people – not sure why.
I had to go to the pharmacy today in 5 points and noticed Big 5 was open,. It was crowded and no one coming in or out had on masks. People walked right past each other coming and going. It’s interesting how some people are so ignorant.
That’s actually not true…even if virtually every one stayed home…it would still be here and spreading. We’re wasting time, money and resources. Where a scalpel was needed…we used a machete!
That’s actually not true…even if virtually every one stayed home…it would still be here and spreading. We’re wasting time, money and resources. Where a scalpel was needed…we used a machete!
Someone sent me this, so I’m not sure who to cite or give credit to…but sure seemed pretty reasonable to me…
“The weird thing about human psyche is that we have a subjective sense of danger, which is not absolute. Anything that we consider normal is not an object of focus. The fact that influenza kills roughly 500,000 people worldwide EVERY YEAR doesn’t get any press coverage and none of us cares about it at all because we consider it “normal”.
If we look at past pandemics (with its corresponding death rates): SARS (9.5%), MERS (>35%), Ebola (50%), Avian flu (75%), we would think that the more lethal a disease is, the more it kills people. Turns out the opposite is true. It may be non-intuitive at first but there is a correlation with human’s psychology in how we process information into focus, it’s similar to when you drive to work everyday vs. you are driving into a new neighborhood to find a place you’re not familiar with. Something that happens regularly doesn’t get your attention.
Tuberculosis kills 1.3 million people every year. Influenza kills 500,000 people annually and shigellosis kills roughly 2600 people DAILY. Why are we not shutting down the world for these dangerous diseases? Because we feel it’s normal and that is why they kill so many people every year. Because COVID-19 death rate is low (less than 1% as more data pours in) and many people show little to no symptoms, we didn’t take it seriously until it becomes a pandemic. Its mildness compared with SARS or Ebola is precisely why it’s more dangerous. However, if we put all the statistical data into focus, COVID-19 isn’t any more of a killing machine than influenza in terms of numbers. But it’s new and people react to the new and unknown more than the “normal”. COVID-19 is a dangerous illness and needs to be contained but, in the end, there is a chance the side effects of COVID-19 are much more damaging than the disease itself.”
That quote is from: http://tinyurl.com/n47kmlb
Rincon County Beach Park is very busy as it’s the only beach access parking lot officially open between Ventura and Padero Lane, to my knowledge. (There are incidental parking spots found along the route, but not parking lots or official beach parking.)
2:39, brace yourself and get ready for all the “you can’t compare this to the flu or anything else that can kill you” and “this is much deadlier than the flu”, followed by “you only care about yourself and the not the fact you could be killing other people around you unless you’ve been tested” comments. Been there, done that.
Shoreline Park has become so crowded that I can’t walk there anymore. Ledbetter beach is populated, too. Some people wear masks; most don’t.
The parking lots are pretty full.
Dangerous for us all!
Mainly because it’s true, 6:19
All the people going out and not social distancing may be doing a favor for all of us who are. If some of them get sick while we stay at home and socially distance properly, then we’ll ease into more cases slowly which eventually will increase the number of immune people. There is no avoiding getting this virus, and all we can do is slow the rate of infection. Just like chicken pox before vaccines, every kid eventually got it except the rare sheltered few.
The data is mirroring what I’ve seen. While some locations like Lazy Acres – major kudos to them – are requiring masks, etc. and patrons seem to be taking this very seriously, other places are going about life as if things are normal and no more than 50% of patrons are wearing PPE at any given time. Uptick with the warm weather in people at the parks and on the street. We had almost no new cases locally here in SB for a week, now we’re looking at 6-7 new cases a day and probably going up. It’s here. There’s no denying that.
Exercise can maintain and improve your lung capacity which is essential to survival if you catch the virus. It seems to me that all the social distancing is to flatten the curve which only lengthens the time over which the pandemic runs. If this runs for a year before vaccines are widely available, its reasonable to assume a high % of people will need that lung capacity to survive the disease.
The difference, Shasta, is that the Chickenpox doesn’t kill people. In any statistically significant sense, anyway.
@Eastbeach, 10:33pm. Yesterday I walked Ladera Lane to Romero Trail head and back. Counted 36 cars parked at Romero Trailhead. That’s a lot of people on the trail. Yes, the fire road is wide enough to socially distance, but the trail is not.
Population of SB County (2019) = 446,499 people
Confirmed Cases 4/16 = 334
Percentage of infected people = .075%
Percentage of deaths from Covid-19 = .00045%
Percentage change of being struck by lightning = .0009%
I agree, Mountain. But I have seen a lot of people who are definitely NOT families out. Like a group of 6 women I saw doing yoga in the Rose Garden. Unless they were all sister wives!
Understood. It’s hard to idiot proof everything, even this virus. People still take up smoking, drive under the influence, drive without seatbelts, change lanes on the freeway without checking blind spots…
It might not save you, but it could definitely help you. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/uovh-cem041520.php And there is a LOT of data showing that you CAN fight pneumonia through lung exercises, etc. This is well known for anyone who has been through major surgery like heart bypass, etc. A good Dr. will get you trained on lung exercises so you fight chances of succumbing to pneumonia. Chris Cuomo did a segment on this on his show last week or so.
what the hell data are you looking at?
https://publichealthsbc.org/status-reports/
at the start of this week we had 39 in sb 5 in goleta. 1 in IV. now those same numbers are 42 sb, 6 goleta, 1 IV. yeah gee real explosive rise eh?
Who said explosive rise? They said there was a stall for almost a week, now a restart with uptick. I’ve been tracking the dashboard. That seems correct.
you live in a city of 50k + people. you’re GOING to get variability of response.
you ought to be very careful about the dichotomy that has been created between the “essentials” and the “non-essentials”
Everyone has different ideas about what a shopping experience should be like. Thankfully, the free market provides us with a wide range of choices. If you like a really strict and authoritarian experience, you can go to a store with security at the door, a dress code, and people to yell at you while you shop. If you want a happy go lucky shopping experience, there are stores that still operate very much like they did a few weeks ago. I’m a more laid back personality myself, but I respect the right of a business to set its own rules. Choose a store that you are comfortable with, but please do not criticize other people’s choices.
36 is a lot. Monday 3pm there were about 12 vehicles. The fireroad is indeed wider than the trail which is why in those sections, everyone should be allowing one party to move to the side while the other passes as there is still plenty of room. That’s what I did in the section north of the two towers (where some hikers were turning back).
The chance of being struck by lightening is dependent on where you live, so throwing out that number is misleading. Higher chance in Montana, less so in California. More importantly, and probably a better way of looking at it, is would you run outside in a lightening storm with a metal fork in your hand? The low numbers of COVID-19 cases and fatalities is a testament to the fact that social distancing is working, as people aren’t running around in this viral storm testing the odds. Really what we should be looking at are the R0 for the virus, and the mortality rate. At this point they’re both still discussed in terms of ranges, but they tend to be on the higher side of what we typically see with influenza. Furthermore, influenza is not frequently associated with ARDS, which is landing patients on ventilators and, sometimes, in coffins. Just try and look at this objectively. I don’t like this shutdown anymore that you do, and my research on cancer has stalled out. If everyone had just stayed home for 14 days, this would have been over a couple of weeks ago. But some people are obstinate and apparently prefer a slow bleed.