Blame it on the Omicron. COVID case rates worldwide and in Santa Barbara are tracking in a straight line skyward. Worse, the number of patients in hospitals is increasing.
Dr. Henning Ansorg, the county's public health officer, said in a recent interview that the case rate had leapt upward starting in mid-December. "Remember when we were discussing lifting the mask mandate at a case rate below seven?" he asked. "Now we're at 100!"
In California, the variant jumped from 1.4 percent to 6.5 percent to 15.7 percent of genetically sequenced cases over the last three weeks of December. Of the five known Omicron cases in the county, one person is vaccinated, and four are not.
