“Cases of COVID-19 continue to drop locally even as omicron remains the dominant variant,” said Dr. Van Do-Reynoso, the Santa Barbara County public health director.
The number of new COVID-19 cases continues to drop in Santa Barbara County, and a similar significant downturn is being seen across the country.
“Public health experts say they are feeling hopeful that more declines are ahead and that the country is shifting from being in a pandemic to an ‘endemic’ that is more consistent and predictable,” The Associated Press reported.
On Tuesday, Santa Barbara County reported 64 new COVID cases. On Wednesday, the number was 61.
In early January, the daily number tended to be around 1,000 cases.
“Cases of COVID-19 continue to drop locally even as omicron remains the dominant variant,” said Dr. Van Do-Reynoso, the Santa Barbara County public health director.
“This is a promising confirmation of what models have anticipated would follow this most recent surge,” she told the News-Press in an email Wednesday. “As we head into the spring and summer months, it is critical to stay up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccinations, stay home if you are ill, and take precautions to safeguard this positive trajectory toward the ending of the pandemic.”
On Feb. 17, California became the first state to officially shift to an “endemic” approach, when Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan that would emphasize prevention and a speedy reaction to outbreaks rather than mask mandates and shutting down businesses.
“We’re going to keep them safe, and we’re going to stay on top of this.This pandemic won’t have a defined end. There’s no finish line,” Gov. Newsom said.
California is among states that recently lifted its indoor mask mandates for fully vaccinated individuals. Others include New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York and Illinois.
Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties lifted their mandates for fully vaccinated individuals.
This week, Target, which has stores in Santa Barbara, Goleta and Santa Maria, announced it wouldn’t require masks of its employees and customers at its stores across the nation, unless required by local regulations. The policy went into effect Monday.
The loosening of restrictions comes as numbers show fewer new cases. The World Health Organization reported that this is the third consecutive week of a national decline in COVID-19 cases.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the total confirmed cases for Feb. 19 just barely capped 100,000, a significant downtick from Jan. 16, when cases were about 800,850.
According to the CDC, COVID-19 hospitalizations are down from a national seven-day average of 146,534 on Jan. 20 to 80,185 for the week ending Feb. 13.
Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease, told Reuters there’s “the fact that the world and the United States and particularly certain parts of the United States are just up to here with COVID. They just really need to somehow get their life back. You don’t want to be reckless and throw everything aside, but you’ve got to start inching toward that.”
In New York, the case count has declined by 50% over the last two weeks.
“I think what’s influencing the decline, of course, is that omicron is starting to run out of people to infect,” Dr. Thomas Russo, professor and infectious disease chief at the University of Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, told The AP.
email: kzehnder@newspress.com
