The state of California has seen more than 4 million hospitalizations for COVID-19 in the past two months and local health officials say cases have slightly increased on the Central Coast as they test wastewater in the area.
According to the California Department of Health, over the course of June and July, there have been a total of 890 daily average hospitalizations across the state.
More than 8% of people have tested positive in that time frame, but the latest data only happens to be the ones that are reported to the state.
Local health officials believe testing the wastewater has been another form of research relating to the uptick in cases.
“Yes, we do believe we are seeing an increase in COVID cases,” said Dr. Penny Borenstein, who is the San Luis Obispo County health officer. “We know this from our wastewater tracking, so we can’t tell exactly how many there are, but we can see that it has gone up in recent weeks."
While there isn’t an exact number of increased cases of COVID-19 in San Luis Obispo County, Santa Barbara County’s health officer says there are about 10 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at three hospitals within the county.
“We do see a slight increase in hospitalizations from week to week. It’s still very low,” said Dr. Henning Ansorg, the Santa Barbara County Public Health officer. “It’s a low rate of hospitalizations with COVID, and the reason we do not know about cases is because most people test themselves with a home test.”
The medical director at the Med Stop Urgent Care in San Luis Obispo says they have received four to six patients a day over the last 4 weeks who were positive for COVID-19.
A majority of those patients found out about their results at home before they were looking for treatment.
“We at the clinic, when we have a positive, we do report that, but people at home — where the majority of the testing goes on — do not report it,” said Dr. Brian Roberts, who is the medical director of Med Stop Urgent Care at the Madonna Plaza. “In fact, we’ve noticed in our clinic recently almost everyone we diagnosed with COVID had a positive test. They’re coming in for treatment options, information about isolation, and all of that. They already know they have the disease.”
Dr. Tom Vendegna, who is the chief medical officer of Dignity Health French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, has seen fewer admissions, despite the increases in cases occurring throughout the public.
“We see a ripple effect of COVID — one or two (COVID) admissions per week. We don’t have anyone in the hospital currently with COVID,” said Dr. Vendegna. “We have not seen anyone escalate into a bad situation like in the ICU or a death from COVID in quite some time, so that’s all good news.”
Health experts say that isolating for five days is recommended when symptoms of COVID-19 begin to show up.
Local health officials say the elderly and those with higher risk factors should stay up to date with the latest vaccine to help prevent getting the disease.
Health experts say the latest vaccine that will help fight against the XBB variant is expected to roll out this fall.
