County reports 30 new COVID-19 cases, two additional deaths
Santa Barbara Cpunty remains in the purple tier of the state’s monitoring list for COVID-19 after failing to meet the goal of seven cases per 100,000 people.
Four additional schools have received approval to reopen for in-person learning beginning next week.
The schools that received the waiver approval are Christian Academy, Santa Ynez Valley Family School, Santa Ynez Valley Christian Academy, and Pacific Christian School, Dr. Van Do-Reynoso, the county’s public health director, announced during Friday’s press conference.
A total of eight schools have now received approval from both the county and the state to resume in-person learning.
A total of 22 schools have applied for the waiver. In addition to the eight that have been approved, six waivers have been sent to the state Department of Public Health for consideration. This does not include Lompoc Unified or Santa Barbara Unified school districts, which have not expressed interest in applying for the waiver.
During Friday’s press conference, the county provided an update to its current status on the state’s monitoring list for COVID-19.
The California Department of Public Health released its adjusted report card for each county on Tuesday and revealed that Santa Barbara County will remain in the purple tier after not meeting the state’s criteria for positive cases per 100,000 population.
For the week, the county was at 8.3 cases per 100,000. It needs to be under seven per 100,000 in order to move into the red tier, which would allow more schools and other businesses, such as movie theaters, to reopen.
“Reaching the less restrictive red tier threshold is tantalizingly close. Unfortunately, our active case numbers from last week are not declining quickly enough to accurately predict that we will meet this threshold soon,” 2nd District Supervisor Gregg Hart said.
“Our case rate is adjusted upward if our testing numbers are below the state’s average and adjusted downward if we test more than the state average, so we need to get our case rate below seven,” Dr. Do-Reynoso said. “And this means our daily case count needs to be an average of 31 cases a day or weekly average of 217 cases. This, along with increased testing, will get us to the next tier. As a community, we can and we must achieve these goals.”
The state’s report card is released every Tuesday.
The county reported a total of 30 cases on Friday, bringing the total to 8,608.
The county also reported two additional deaths, bringing the county’s total to 105. Since June 22, the county has now reported 78 deaths.
Both decedents resided in the city of Santa Maria and had underlying health conditions. One was between the ages of 50 and 69 while the other was over the age of 70. Santa Maria now has 57 deaths, the most of any city in the county.
Neither of the deaths reported by the county were associated with a congregate living facility, officials said.
Of the total cases in the county, 183 are considered active, with 38 people recovering in the hospital and 12 people receiving treatment in the Intensive Care Unit.
The city of Santa Barbara reported the most cases on Friday with 12, bringing its total to 1,160, 26 of which are considered active.
Santa Maria announced six new cases to now have a total of 3,715 cases, with 51 considered active.
Lompoc reported three new cases, Santa Ynez, Goleta, and Isla Vista each reported two new cases and the unincorporated area of the Goleta Valley and Gaviota reported one new case.
email: jmercado@newspress.com
