SD County still awaiting guidance after falling off state COVID-19 watchlist

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - As San Diego County continues to await guidance on

the effects of its removal from the state's coronavirus watchlist, public

health officials reported 212 new COVID-19 cases and five additional deaths

today, raising the region's totals to 35,376 cases and 638 deaths.

The county was officially removed from the state's monitoring list

Tuesday, setting in motion a 14-day countdown that could see K-12 students back

in the classroom as soon as Sept. 1, depending on the decisions of individual

school districts. However, any guidance on what that means for businesses was

still unclear.

County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said he and other county officials

were expecting to hear about the framework for reopening indoor businesses from

the state by Monday.

``That doesn't mean we'll be able to open everything all at once,'' he

said. ``We must be mindful. We don't want to undo the progress we've made

so far.''

The county continues to make progress, with a case rate of 84.4

positive COVID-19 tests per 100,000 people on Wednesday, below the state's 100

per 100,000 guideline.

The county will be placed back on the list should it be flagged for

exceeding any one of six different metrics for three consecutive days. Those

metrics are the case rate, the percentage of positive tests, the average number

of tests a county is able to perform daily, changes in the number of

hospitalized patients and the percentage of ventilators and intensive care beds

available.

Of the 6,781 tests reported Wednesday, 3% returned positive, lowering

the 14-day rolling average to 4%, well below the state's 8% guideline. The 7-

day rolling average of tests is 7,798 daily.

Of the total positive cases in the county, 2,916 -- or 8.2% -- have

required hospitalization since the pandemic began, and 723 -- or 2% -- were

admitted to an intensive care unit. The current number of COVID-19 patients in

the hospital rose slightly to 303 Wednesday, with 104 of those in the ICU.

County health officials reported two new community outbreaks

Wednesday, dropping the number of outbreaks in the past week to 15.

The new outbreaks were in a restaurant and a business. The county

continues to keep the names and locations of businesses with outbreaks secret.

The number of community outbreaks remains well above the county's goal

of fewer than seven in a seven-day span, although Dr. Wilma Wooten, the

county's public health officer, thanked the public for adhering to health

guidelines to significantly reduce those numbers. A community setting outbreak

is defined as three or more COVID-19 cases in a setting and in people of

different households in the past 14 days.

On Monday, county-compiled data related to race and ethnicity on

testing, staffing and geographic location will be made available for the first

time. Previously, data on race had been broken down by deaths, hospitalizations

and case numbers only.

Latinos are still disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, with that

ethnic group representing 61.7% of all hospitalizations and 46% of all deaths

due to the illness. Latinos make up about 35% of San Diego County's population.

Wooten revealed a five-tiered testing priority protocol Wednesday that

the county has been using. In the top two tiers were symptomatic people

separated by risk factors, followed by two tiers of asymptomatic people and

finally by a general public health surveillance tier. The county reassessed its

testing priorities in mid-July.

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced Tuesday that the city would

begin allowing gyms, fitness businesses and places of worship to operate in

city parks beginning Monday.

``There is no city better than San Diego to take advantage of the fact

that COVID-19 has a harder time spreading outdoors. Using parks as part of

our pandemic relief response will help the mental health and physical health of

thousands of San Diegans,'' Faulconer said.