San Diego Sees Higher Rate Of Infection As Coronavirus Cases Soar

SAN DIEGO, CA — San Diego County health officials have reported 1,859 new COVID-19 infections, raising the region's total to 80,018 cases, with one additional death for an overall death toll of 997.

Saturday marked the 18th consecutive day that more than 600 new cases were reported.

A total of 21,000 tests were reported Saturday and 8% of those came back positive, bringing the 14-day rolling average of positive tests to 5.5%, according to San Diego Public Health Services.

Of the total number of cases in the county, 4,577 — or 5.7% — have required hospitalization and 1,010 patients — or 1.3% of all cases — had to be admitted to an intensive care unit.

A total of 18 new community outbreaks were confirmed Saturday, though information about the types of locations where these occurred was not available.

Over the previous seven days, 82 community outbreaks were confirmed. A community outbreak is defined as three or more COVID-19 cases in a setting and in people of different households over the past 14 days.

San Diego County fell deeper into the most restrictive purple tier of the state's four-tiered reopening plan Tuesday with an unadjusted 21.5 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people. Even with an adjusted rate of 13.1 per 100,000 due to significant testing increases by local health authorities, that number far exceeds the strictest tier's baseline of seven daily cases per 100,000.

The testing positivity percentage is 3.1%, placing it in the less restrictive orange tier for that metric.

The county's health equity metric, which looks at the testing positivity for areas with the lowest healthy conditions, is 9.3% and is in the purple tier. This metric does not move counties to more restrictive tiers but is required to advance to a less restrictive tier.

City News Service