SB Co Community Data Dashboard
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Local health experts are seeing a significant shift in COVID-19 Variants of Concern in Santa Barbara County.
The Local Variant Research Team, comprised of Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons and UCSB Professor Carolina Arias, shared their latest findings Thursday afternoon.
The updated Community Dashboard shows out of 291 samples, 173 or 59.5% are Variants of Concern.
Their findings show that over the past few weeks, the UK Variant has established itself in our area and has overtaken all other variants. That includes the West Coast Variant.
Fitzgibbons shared with NewsChannel 3-12 that the UK Variant, B.1.1.7, was present in the majority of samples from confirmed COVID-19 cases taken in April. And, that a new Variant of Interest popped up in late March in samples and, is growing. That is the B.1.526, which emerged back in February in New York City. Health officials have said that variant has the potential to resist the immune syst
Infectious Disease expert: ‘Variants of concern showing up and taking over’
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Infectious Disease experts in Santa Barbara County are well into a fifth month tracking two COVID-19 variants now prevalent in Santa Barbara County. And, they re seeing an uptick in a higher percentage of variants of concern over the past three months. So the two primary variants of concern that we re finding in Santa Barbara County are the B.1.1.7, originally identified in the United Kingdom and, what we call the West Coast variant. It s actually a pair of twin variants B.1.427 and B.1.429, said Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons.