With Fiesta right around the corner and summer in full bloom, Santa Barbara County health officials are expressing heightened concern over a significant increase in COVID cases.
As of July 29, the county reported 403 active cases of COVID, an increase of 55 percent from the previous two weeks. On that day, the county reported 102 new cases. With a case rate of 9.8 new cases per 100,000 people, that would put Santa Barbara County squarely in the purple tier if the state’s four-colored tier system were still operational. On the first day of July, by contrast, the county was reporting only nine new cases with only 57 active cases throughout the county.
Currently, there are 23 people infected with COVID hospitalized within county lines; two weeks ago, there were 10.