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SLO County Health clears backlog of COVID-19 cases but new issue delays reporting

6 more COVID-19 related deaths reported
Coronavirus
Posted at 2:35 PM, Jan 04, 2021
and last updated 2021-01-04 18:47:00-05

San Luis Obispo County added close to 900 new cases of COVID-19 over part of the holiday weekend, bringing the county's total to 11,284 confirmed cases as of January 4.

On New Year's Day, 559 cases were reported and on Saturday, 327 cases were reported.

Totals for Sunday and Monday are not currently available, according to the San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department, because the state's database, CalREDIE, is experiencing an outage.

County health officials say the new cases added over the weekend include the remainder of last week's backlog in cases. The backlog of cases in the state's database was attributed to a change in the way the state assigns suspected cases to the counties.

Health officials say that backlog has now been cleared but it's unknown when the outage issue with CalREDIE will be resolved.

They say the issue does not affect the number of cases requiring hospitalization or deaths reported locally because that data is assessed 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 State of California's online COVID-19 dashboard, 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 the ages of 60 and 100-years-old.

San Luis Obispo County has had 88 deaths attributed to COVID-19.

Forty-four of those deaths occurred in the month of December. Forty-percent of the county's total cases were also reported in December.

Health officials say that with the large spike in cases over the past few weeks, it's likely 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
  • California Men's Colony (inmates) - 941
  • Arroyo Grande - 830
  • Nipomo - 770
  • Grover Beach - 485
  • Oceano - 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 "other," which includes communities with fewer than five cases. The Public Health Department is not identifying those locations.

Community COVID-19 testing sites are currently open to the public in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Morro Bay, Grover Beach, and Nipomo.

Appointments are required at all locations. Click here to schedule an appointment.

For more information on the county's COVID-19 response, visit readyslo.org.