One thing about anticipating the worst is that you're not surprised when it arrives. For months, Santa Barbara doctors and health officials have watched new strains of COVID-19 approach the county's borders, working to vaccinate the maximum number of people possible with the little vaccine they've received, and organizing a variant research team involving UC Santa Barbara, Cottage Health, and Pacific Diagnostic Lab.
On March 18, the first evidence of the B.1.1.7 variant, a mutation first detected in England, was announced by County Public Health, after being discovered through a Centers for Disease Control monitoring program. That the two individuals who carried the variant had already recovered while in quarantine indicates how long it took to verify that the even more contagious coronavirus was in the county.
The two cases were unrelated, and neither had traveled recently, Public Health stated. Dr. Henning Ansorg, the county's health officer, was unable to say where in Santa Barbara County the two lived, but he could say that neither was hospitalized while infected and that neither had been vaccinated. They must feel very lucky.