COVID-19 cases spike as Ventura County slowly opens back up

Hospitals, ICUs at full capacity

Ava Harris and Julianne Koch|January 29, 2021

With hospitals in Ventura County at full capacity, it’s even more important to follow COVID-19 rules and regulations to stay safe and healthy according to the CDC. In December of 2020, California saw a sudden spike in positive COVID-19 cases. The amount of daily cases in Ventura County is higher than ever before, now reaching a total of over 67 thousand,533 cases. This number is continuing to climb.

Since the holiday season, the daily test positive rate per 100,000 citizens has increased to over 80 in Ventura County. This number must be below 28 for the quarantine restrictions to be lifted. In a staff email regarding the current COVID-19 situation, it was mentioned that 15 staff members have tested positive for the virus. More than half of those cases have been diagnosed within the last 3 weeks.

The same email explained that staff members who wish to come onto campus for any reason must have a COVID-19 test on file, and this needs to be updated every 2 weeks. Without any test on file, a staff member will not be permitted to be on campus. Vaccinations are slowly being released, and all staff members will eventually receive them.

Oak Park Unified School District planned to have students return to school in a Hybrid Method at the beginning of January 2021 but with these sudden spikes in cases, the chance of students returning this month or next month is very low.

According to OPUSD Coordinator of Special Safety and Equity Holly Baxter schools do not presently have the ability to return to in-person learning due to the current restrictions and new cases.

“We are beholden to county and state restrictions on when we can reopen campuses. Currently, our community case numbers are too high to return to in-person learning. We hope that these numbers will begin improving soon,” Baxter said.

This sudden increase in COVID-19 cases has been especially tough on hospitals in Ventura County. Staff is running out of equipment and space for their patients, and it has been even busier than usual. Hospitals have been forced to close down many units to provide more space. The number of COVID-19 patients in Ventura County hospitals nearly tripled throughout December.

Ventura County’s intensive care availability rate has dropped to 0%, according to data from the state. This includes bed availability. The hospital staff has also seen a surge of patients in the ICU.

“It is already busy being a nurse but with COVID-19 it does get overwhelming,” Los Robles Regional Medical Center nurse Ashley Zhikarev said.

Zhikarev described what it’s like with a full hospital and how overwhelming it can be for staff due to the depletion of resources.

“Our hospitals have closed down many units due to the overflow of COVID-19 patients. Our COVID-19 floors and ICU beds are full,” Zhikarev said.

According to Zhikarev, teens need to be careful since they can still spread the virus to older people and each other.

“High school students should be considerate of the geriatric and immunocompromised population because most adolescents are asymptomatic and can still spread the virus,” Zhikarev said.