The number 32 at the county’s COVID dashboard stands as a banner to Santa Barbara’s last hope of achieving the state’s red tier by simply wearing face masks and avoiding crowds. An inexorable rise in cases since early November peaked on Monday with 456 new cases. The six deaths reported Monday each took one of the most vulnerable among us — an elderly person living in senior care facilities in the Santa Ynez Valley, Orcutt, Goleta, Santa Barbara, and the unincorporated South County. Despite the governor’s renewed shutdown of Southern California and much of the state, our best efforts have failed. Public Health blames it on the travel and gatherings of four weeks ago; around the world, it’s become clear that the new strain of COVID-19 has adapted to be even more contagious.
The county’s ICU bed count — the state’s new marker for the coronavirus danger level — dropped today to an adjusted 0.7 percent; the actual count is 19 percent. (The adjusted rate lowers the actual ICU bed count by a half-point for every point over 30 percent occupied by a COVID patient. The hospital count indicates the prevalence of disease in the community, and the adjustment allows health officials to anticipate a surge.)
Cottage Health hit a peak for its COVID patients Monday with 79 patients, roughly half the county’s cases. It had six critical care beds left at the time. Even among Cottage’s health-care workers, despite having a COVID section at the various wards like pediatrics and the birth center, many who become infected inevitably source it to members of their households or interactions out in public.