As the Santa Barbara County Department of Public Health deals with a number of COVID-19 outbreaks from the last week in October, it’s preparing for an increase in positive cases as fall activities come to a close, Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg said.
“There was a significant amount of outbreaks in schools, we didn’t have to close down any schools completely—only quarantining those in close contact, which is a good thing,” Ansorg said.
According to Oct. 22 data, there were 11 active school outbreaks in the county—with nine of the 11 in North County. The smallest outbreak included seven students and one staff member. The largest outbreak was at Santa Maria High School, infecting 55 students and five staff members, Ansorg said.
The Santa Maria Joint Union High School District did not respond to a request for comment before the Sun went to press.
“They all had homecoming with big parties and lots going on this time of year in high schools. It’s understandable; however, high school kids have been eligible for the vaccine,” he said.
The Public Health Department has teams dedicated to working with the schools through liaisons partnered with school nurses and holds weekly meetings where students and faculty can ask questions regarding vaccinations and get tested for COVID-19, Ansorg said. He encourages continued testing in bigger settings like schools. The quicker positive cases are identified and isolated, the less likely they are to infect others, Ansorg said.
“Our case rates aren’t going down anymore; they were going down until last week [Oct. 25 to 29],” he said.
The Public Health Department follows a tier system, with yellow being the lowest case rates and purple being the highest case rates. Santa Barbara County entered the purple tier due to the outbreaks with 415 new cases from Oct. 22 to 28.
“Whenever you have a moderate-sized outbreak like 55 cases in a school—and they all happen within a few days—that will raise the numbers,” he said. “It’s just seasonal [too] with more social activities, homecoming, Halloween, much more weddings, and more travel.”
Ansorg and his team are anticipating another increase with Thanksgiving and the holiday season approaching with cooler temperatures, more indoor activities, and more family get-togethers, he said.
“The holiday season caused a spike last year. We are watching the numbers daily and looking for early signs of a surge,” he said. “It’s just unfortunate, we don’t want to work up anybody.”
About 40 percent of the county population remains unvaccinated, and 40 people were in the hospital and 13 in the ICU as of Oct. 29—a substantial number of people, Asnorg said. He’s concerned about the people who procrastinate getting vaccinated or don’t want to get vaccinated, because, he said, they have a higher chance of getting seriously ill.
“We still have a really significant to high transmission rate in the community, which means taking precautions is important. Fewer cases means lower chances to catch the virus. If you have ongoing virus transmission to a significant level, it keeps spreading,” Ansorg said.
Ansorg recommends continuing to wear indoor face coverings and avoiding indoor crowds. Those precautions combined with the vaccination have the best impact on reducing cases, he said.
“It’s my job and responsibility to make sure that people can stay as healthy and well as possible. I don’t have the luxury to just look at one patient and consider their particular situation, I have 450,000 patients—the higher the rate of vaccinated people, the better the 450,000 people are doing,” he said.
Visit Public Health’s website to view COVID-19 data as well as find vaccine appointments and testing facilities.
Clarification
The Santa Maria Joint Union High School District requested a clarification for the Sun’s Nov. 4 news brief “School outbreaks cause increase in county COVID-19 cases” due to a discrepancy with the number of cases the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department reported for an outbreak at Santa Maria High School.
Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg told the Sun that a COVID-19 outbreak at Santa Maria High School totaled 55 cases as of Oct. 22. School district spokesperson Kenny Klein responded to the Sun’s requests for comment after the Sun went to press on Nov. 4 and objected to the number of cases Public Health reported. According to district COVID-19 testing, Klein said the number of positive cases at Santa Maria High was much lower for the week of Oct. 22 to 29.
The Sun followed-up with Public Health for clarification. Public Information Officer Jackeline Ruiz said that in the two months leading up to Oct. 22 (from identification of the first positive cases to when the last linked positive cases finished their quarantine), 55 positive COVID-19 cases were identified at the school.
The department receives its information via electronic laboratory reporting, which tallies the results of all COVID-19 tests, regardless of where the test is conducted, Ruiz stated via email.
The district monitors on-site testing on a weekly basis, Klein told the Sun via email. For the two months from Aug. 30 to Oct. 22, school testing facilities reported 23 Santa Maria High School students and three staff members tested positive for COVID-19 from Aug. 30 to Oct. 22, according to a tally of weekly numbers provided by the district.
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2021.