Santa Barbara County asks travelers, returning residents to stay home for 14 days
The Public Health Department is recommending that travelers stay home for 14 days when they return to Santa Barbara County after traveling outside the area.
Last week, county officials asked people to adapt their Thanksgiving plans and avoid traveling, if possible, due to the upward trend of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
California’s travel advisory says people arriving from other states or countries, including returning state residents, “should practice self-quarantine for 14 days after arrival.”
That means staying home, except to receive medical care, and not having any visitors.
Overall, local plane travel, train travel and hotel bookings were significantly lower than in previous Thanksgiving weeks.
While the Santa Barbara Airport saw its highest travel days since March, the number of passengers was much smaller than the same time last year.
UC Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara City College, which made most classes online-only for the current terms, asked students to get tested if they traveled out of the area for Thanksgiving.
UCSB Student Health has free testing for students living near campus, even if they have no symptoms, through Dec. 11.
SBCC also asked students and employees to get a COVID-19 test if they traveled, but the college does not have its own testing facility. Instead, SBCC administrators asked people to make an appointment for a test “from a community testing location,” and referred them to the Public Health Department website.
“If you traveled and are scheduled to work on campus or are enrolled in in-person, on-campus classes, you are required to be tested for COVID-19 within 48 hours of returning. Employees who must work on campus are asked to maintain physical distance while working on campus as much as possible for the next seven days.
“Students who traveled are encouraged to quarantine for seven days and monitor symptoms daily,” SBCC officials said in an email message to students and employees.
The free, state-run community testing locations in Santa Barbara County are in high demand right now, partly because of holiday travel, and there were no available appointments at Goleta or Buellton sites as of Monday, according to the testing website.
COVID-19 testing is available at many other locations, including doctor’s offices and health clinics, and a list of testing sites is available here.
On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will consider more restrictions, and possibly another stay-at-home order, if cases and hospitalizations continue to increase so quickly.
He said the state expects holiday travel and gatherings to cause an increase in cases two or three weeks from now.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said higher community transmission means people are more likely to be infected with the novel coronavirus now, even if they behave the same way they did a month ago.
“The truth is even those activities which felt low risk, which felt safer a month ago, today are higher risk than many of us realize,” he said in a briefing last week.
Go to publichealthsbc.org/dont-feel-well for Santa Barbara County Public Health Department information on isolating and quarantining, and what to do if you feel sick, have tested positive for COVID-19, or have been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.