The Santa Barbara County Health Department reported 73 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday, bringing the county’s total cases to 6,094.
Thursday’s announcement marks the lowest weekday cases announced since July 13, when the county announced 56 new cases.
Of the total cases, 290 are still considered active, or still infectious, according to the county’s website. That number is down 59 from Wednesday’s total.
Of the active cases, 89 people are recovering in the hospital and 29 are in the Intensive Care Unit.
The majority of the cases announced Thursday were out of Santa Maria, which announced 33 new cases. Santa Maria has the most cases by city in the county, with 2,709. Of those, 117 are active and no other city has more than 50 active cases.
Lompoc recorded 11 new cases Thursday, while Santa Barbara reported nine new cases and now has 763 total cases, 58 of which are active.
Santa Ynez had four new cases, Goleta reported three, while the communities of Montecito, Summerland, Orcutt and the unincorporated areas of Sisquoc, Casmalia, Garey, Cuyama, New Cuyama and the city of Guadalupe each announced one new case.
There were also no new cases in the Federal Prison Complex in Lompoc, which, according to the county’s website, has no current active cases.
Broken down by age range, the bracket with the most cases came from residents between 30 and 49 with 30 new cases, bringing the total to 2,426 — the most in the county for any age range.
There were also 18 new cases in the 18-29 age range, bringing the total to 1,611.
The 0-17 age range saw four new cases, 50-69 saw 16 and those in the 70-plus group saw five new cases.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department also announced Thursday that a civilian staff member was found to have COVID-19.
This brings the total number of Sheriff’s Office employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 to 37, with 28 having recovered and returned to work.
Currently, four custody deputies, three civilian staff and two sheriff’s deputies are still recovering, according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office.
The staff member who tested positive consistently wore a mask and worked near an inmate cleaning crew that wore full personal protective equipment.
The staffer was tested Tuesday, worked Wednesday and informed of his positive test Thursday, according to the release.
email: jmercado@newspress.com
