‘We are seeing a flattening of our curve.’ SLO County says social distancing is working

San Luis Obispo County now has more than 100 confirmed cases of coronavirus, a number that the county Public Health Department projected would come much quicker, according to the county’s original models.

“We are seeing a flattening of our curve,” County Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein said at a Wednesday briefing.

In the two weeks after the first local coronavirus case was confirmed, San Luis Obispo County saw new cases every day, sometimes up to nine new cases in one day. However, in two of the past six days, the county had no new cases.

On Monday, Borenstein said that the drop in new cases may be due to a lack of testing, so she encouraged more people to get tested if they have any coronavirus symptoms. Since then, the county has significantly increased the number of tests it has conducted, yet the number of new cases did not rise drastically with it.

The Public Health Lab tested 47 samples from Wednesday to Thursday with only two positive results for COVID-19.

While the county does not know the total number of tests that private labs are conducting locally, Borenstein said she believes many healthcare providers are offering tests.

Borenstein said the low numbers of confirmed cases may not only be due to a lack of testing. Social distancing measures may also be playing a large role.

“As a community at large and as a county, we have been doing a fabulous job and we believe we’re seeing that in the results of seeing small numbers of new cases,” she said.

When will SLO County see its peak?

Statewide, California is projected to reach a peak in late May or early June. In Santa Barbara County, reports have shown that the peak may not happen until November.

However, in San Luis Obispo County, Borenstein said the peak will likely happen “sooner, rather than later. “

While Borenstein said the county has been doing a great job social distancing and numbers remain relatively low compared to other neighboring counties, the Public Health Department is still expecting a surge in local cases.

“We don’t have a very robust way to give you a date of when we are going to be at our peak and when we are going to be able to change the circumstances as we face them today,” Borenstein said. “We anticipate that we will see a surge beyond that which we have to date, and we are prepared for that surge.”

Borenstein said the county is reluctant to share its models because they change frequently and are not always reliable.

She said, however, that San Luis Obispo County is more aligned with the state’s projections for May than Santa Barbara’s November projection.

“Though we are modeling and looking toward May as our peak, we really don’t have a good handle on that,” she said.

As the county heads toward its fourth week of sheltering at home, Borenstein said it is crucial to continue to limit interactions.

“The more mitigation efforts and social distancing take hold, the further out we can potentially push when we see our peak or maybe we don’t even peak. Maybe we’re just sort of ticking along,” Borenstein said.

Although the county is hopeful that the peak will come sooner than Santa Barbara County’s projections, Borenstein said they are not in a place where they can address when sheltering at home will come to an end.

This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 1:06 PM.