Fact check: Why are SLO’s COVID cases rising faster than the rest of SLO County?
After months playing second fiddle to Paso Robles, the city of San Luis Obispo recently assumed the title of the local city with the most total coronavirus cases since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year.
It’s also been the only city to consistently still report double digit increases of new daily cases, while most other cities and communities throughout San Luis Obispo County are seeing a marked slowdown in their COVID-19 case counts.
As of Friday, San Luis Obispo had reported 4,165 positive cases of coronavirus since March 2020. That’s compared to a total of 4,095 COVID-19 cases in Paso Robles during the same time period.
On Friday, San Luis Obispo added 21 new cases — more than half of the new cases reported across the entire county.
So what’s happening?
San Luis Obispo County spokeswoman Whitney Szentesi said the reason is likely two-fold: testing and young people.
Some people speculate that young college students are driving coronavirus numbers up because they ignore regulations and gather in groups.
This is an especially convenient explanation in San Luis Obispo, which is home to Cal Poly and Cuesta College. However, Szentesi said, it’s not the full story.
She said there is some truth to the fact that “people between the ages of 18 and 49 continue to make up a majority of (SLO County’s) new cases.”
She said that age group does “seem to be getting COVID-19 more than other age groups in our region,” noting people ages 18 to 49 have made up about 60% of the total San Luis Obispo County cases throughout the pandemic.
In March, that age group made up about 63% of the new county cases.
Additionally, San Luis Obispo County residents at the younger end of that age group — people ages 18 to 29 — made up 36% of the new cases in March, while the 30- to 49-year-old demographic made up 27%.
That trend is continuing in April so far, Szentesi said, with the 18-to-49 age group making up about 69% of new COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday.
About 46% of the new cases involved people ages 18 to 29, while only 23% involved residents ages 30 to 49.
Though the numbers show that young people make up a much larger portion of the new coronavirus cases countywide, Szentesi said the city of San Luis Obispo is likely reporting higher coronavirus numbers because it has higher rates of testing than other cities.
“COVID-19 is still widespread here in SLO County,” she said. “The fact is that more people seem to be getting tested at our SLO community testing sites than at our testing sites elsewhere in SLO County.”
Szentesi did not provide specific data on testing volume at the county’s coronavirus testing locations and the county does not publish a breakdown of testing at those location on its website.
San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department spokeswoman Michelle Shoresman said the department conducted 4,342 tests at its San Luis Obispo city testing clinic in March, compared with 1,623 at its Paso Robles location, 1,572 in Grover Beach, 1,087 in Morro Bay and 348 in Nipomo. (The Nipomo testing clinic recently closed.)
That means the Public Health Department was performing almost three times as many tests in San Luis Obispo as it was at its next most used clinic.
Szentesi noted that Cal Poly’s testing program, which monitors both on and off-campus students, likely also contributes to the community’s higher testing volume.
In total, Cal Poly says it has conducted 183,971 tests since the start of its testing program in July, including 83,133 of on-campus students and 96,595 of off-campus students, as of Friday.
On Friday, Cal Poly reported 22 new student cases —15 involving students living on campus and seven involving off-campus students.
In its daily reports, the county records on-campus students as a separate entity from off-campus students, who are included in other cities’ reports. The numbers often do not match between the county and Cal Poly’s data due to reporting differences and lag.
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