Thousands of health care workers are getting vaccinated in SLO County, and in February we hope to expand vaccinations to older adults and some essential workers.

• The County Public Health Department has received a total of 12,225 vaccine doses including more than 3,000 second doses yesterday, which will be given as early as next week. As of yesterday, the County Public Health Department has given out over 3,600 doses; we are vaccinating 5 days a week.
• ​We understand that people are eager to get the vaccine and we are working quickly to be able to expand who can get vaccinated. The next category – Phase 1b, which includes: Older adults and other categories of essential workers, outside of health care, that still provide direct services. We hope to start this group by February.
• ​We hope to stand up two more vaccination clinics later this month, to accommodate the larger pool of people that need vaccination. More information will be available at: emergencyslo.org/vaccines and via our e-newsletter.

Don’t wait to isolate. Some who test positive may not get a call at all and may instead get a text message with instructions from the County Public Health Department.

• With over 2,800 active COVID-19 cases, our contact tracing team is overwhelmed and can no longer reach every positive case or close contact by phone call. We will be texting individuals under the age of 50 isolation instructions
• ​Anyone age 50 or older who tests positive will still receive a phone call from a contact tracer, but because of our currently high numbers, a contact tracer may not be able to call you immediately.
• ​Bottom line: Don’t wait to isolate for at least 10 days if you test positive. Also, tell your close contacts that they need to quarantine for at least 10 days from exposure – 14 is preferred.

COVID-19 transmission is surging here in SLO County. The local situation is getting worse.

• In only the first 6 days of January, SLO County has reached almost half the number of new cases we saw the whole month of December. That’s 2,000 additional cases, or a 20% increase, since last week.

• CalREDIE, the State’s database of cases, is currently experiencing some glitches and outages that is delaying local data updates. The number of new cases locally are likely even higher. These issues do not affect the number of deaths, hospitalizations, or intensive care cases reported locally.

• Over 50 people in the hospital being treated for COVID and an all-time high of 14 people in the ICU with COVID. We have reported 13 deaths in the last three days. COVID is now the #1 cause of death not only in the US, but in our county as well.