San Luis Obispo County added about 900 new cases of COVID-19 during part of the holiday weekend, bringing the county total to 11,284 confirmed cases on January 4.
On New Year’s Day, 559 cases were reported and on Saturday, 327 cases were reported.
The totals for Sunday and Monday are currently not available, according to the San Luis Obispo County Department of Public Health, because the state’s database, CalREDIE, is experiencing a standstill.
County health officials say the new cases added over the weekend include the rest of last week’s case backlog. The backlog of cases in the state’s database has been attributed to a change in the way the state assigns suspicious cases to counties.
Health officials say the backlog has been resolved, but it is not known when the CalREDIE interruption problem will be resolved.
They say the problem does not affect the number of cases requiring hospitalization or deaths reported locally because these data are evaluated separately.
Currently, 49 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in San Luis Obispo County, including 13 patients who are in the ICU. Another 2,417 people are recovering at home and health officials say 8,714 people have recovered.
According to the COVID-19 online panel for the state of California, there are currently 22 ICU beds available in San Luis Obispo County.
San Luis Obispo County is also reporting the deaths of six more people who tested positive for COVID-19.
Health officials say the patients were between 60 and 100 years old.
The county of San Luis Obispo had 88 deaths attributed to COVID-19.
Forty-four of these deaths occurred in December. Forty percent of the county’s total cases were also reported in December.
Health officials say that with the huge increase in cases in recent weeks, it is likely that even more people have been exposed to the virus.
Breakdown of cases by location:
- Paso Robles – 2,453
- San Luis Obispo – 2,303
- Atascadero – 992
- Arroyo Grande – 941
- California Men’s Colony (Inmates) – 830
- Nipomo – 770
- Grover Beach – 485
- Ocean – 394
- Templeton – 342
- San Miguel – 307
- Cal Poly (campus residents) – 256
- Los Osos – 246
- Morro Bay – 219
- Pismo Beach – 175
- Atascadero State Hospital (patients) – 139
- Shandon – 94
- Santa Margarita – 87
- Cambria – 80
- Creston – 50
- Cayucos – 44
- Avila Beach – 15
- San Simeon – 8
- Shell Beach – 7
The location of 38 additional cases is under investigation and another nine are listed as “others”, which includes communities with fewer than five cases. The Department of Public Health is not identifying these locations.
The testing sites of the COVID-19 community are currently open to the public in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Morro Bay, Grover Beach and Nipomo.
Appointments are mandatory in all locations. Click here to schedule an appointment.
For more information on the county’s COVID-19 response, visit readyslo.org.