A decrease in daily COVID-19 cases is being seen in Santa Barbara County in the month of September.
Santa Barbara County Public Health Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso says back in July, when the state fully re-opened, a dramatic increase of cases was seen continuing into the beginning of August as well, but numbers show they are now going in a different direction.
"We since then have seen a downward trend in our cases per 100,000 since the middle of August,” Do-Reynoso said.
In a span of almost a week, the daily COVID-19 case rate has gone from 16 per 100,000 to 14.7 per 100,000.
In San Luis Obispo, there's also been a slight decrease.
According to Dr. Brian Roberts at Med Stop Urgent Care, he's seen fewer patients testing positive for COVID-19 this month compared to the last two months.
"Our test positivity rate was actually higher than 25% more than 1 in 4 was coming back positive at that time. In late September we are below 10 percent maybe even approaching 5 percent. So it is a significantly lower positive rate than we had just 4 or 5 weeks ago,” Roberts said.
Do-Reynoso attributes the decrease to a few things.
“Both the state rate, our vaccination rate, and our masking indoors are all contributing to our decrease in case rate here in Santa Barbara County,” she said.
She adds that although she remains hopeful the decline will continue, severe cases among those who are unvaccinated continue and even breakthrough cases are happening.
“I think that it is well within our grasp and really wanting to encourage our whole community that if you are not vaccinated please get vaccinated as soon as possible.”