Local health officials say the number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 is dropping and of those hospitalized, many are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
"An interesting case of a young lady who spent a long weekend in Las Vegas and it turns out everything you get in Las Vegas doesn't stay in Las Vegas, so she got sick. We have not seen anybody hospitalized to the best of our knowledge who was fully vaccinated out of this clinic," said Dr. Brian Roberts, an Emergency Medicine Specialist at Med Stop Urgent Care in San Luis Obispo.
Med Stop Urgent Care has seen much lower numbers of individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 in recent months.
Dr. Roberts attributes the drop in hospitalizations to San Luis Obispo’s vaccination rate and older and at-risk groups getting vaccinated.
"It's worked miraculously. I mean, just look at what our experience is now compared to December and January. It has been phenomenally effective," Roberts said.
Hospitalization is unlikely for individuals who have received a COVID-19 vaccine.
"We now see that almost all patients who are requiring hospital care and ICU admissions are unvaccinated people," said Santa Barbara County
Public Health Officer, Dr. Henning Ansorg.
Roberts says although vaccinated individuals can still contract COVID-19, it is much more likely that the illness will not lead to ICU admission or hospitalization.
"Again, we have seen cases of fully vaccinated people getting positive tests and getting sick but none of them getting hospitalized, none of them getting severely ill," Roberts said.
Roberts believes deciding whether to get vaccinated is a very personal decision with many factors involved.
"If they can make informed decisions and understand their risks as best for doing it or not doing it and they've done their due diligence and they make their decision, I'm supportive of it," Roberts said.
You can still register for a COVID-19 vaccine appointment by going to the state’s “My Turn” website.