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303 new COVID-19 infections, 4 new deaths reported Wednesday in SD County

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - San Diego County public health officials reported

303 new COVID-19 infections and four virus-related deaths today, raising the

region's totals to 51,327 cases and 844 deaths.

This comes a day after state data confirmed the county will remain in

the red, or substantial, tier of the state's four-tier COVID-19 reopening plan

for at least another week.

County supervisors Greg Cox and Nathan Fletcher said staying in red

wasn't good enough. Cox said the red tier's restrictions still made it

incredibly difficult for small businesses to stay open.

Fletcher agreed, saying the county needed to drive down positive tests

and new case numbers.

``The overwhelming majority [of county residents] are doing everything

right, but we need to see numbers go down,'' he said. ``We need to get off

this weekly cliff we stare down.''

For several consecutive weeks, the county has remained in the red

tier, but within very close range of that purple tier which would shutter

almost all indoor business.

According to the California Department of Public Health on Tuesday,

San Diego County's state-calculated, adjusted case rate is 6.8 daily infections

per 100,000 residents, up from 6.5 the previous week. The unadjusted case rate

was 7.2, up from 6.9 last Tuesday. The adjusted rate is due to San Diego

County's high volume of tests.

The testing positivity percentage is 3%, below last week's 3.5%, and

is in the third -- or orange -- tier.

To remain in the second tier of the four-tier COVID-19 reopening plan,

the county must continue to have an adjusted case rate of less than 7.0 per

100,000 residents and a testing positivity percentage of less than 5%.

The county is preparing additional health and safety guidelines as

school year moves forward, county Public Health Officer Dr. Wilma Wooten said

Wednesday. A survey of the San Diego County Office of Education found that of

the 42 school districts, 27 are reopen to at least some students for in-person

learning, six will open later this month, three have a target date of January

2021, one is looking for a start date in October or November and two are still

determining a start date.

Of the 9,662 tests reported Wednesday, 3% returned positive, bringing

the 14-day rolling average percentage of positive cases at 3%. The seven-day

daily average of tests was 10,472.

Of the total number of cases in the county, 3,710 -- or 7.3% -- have

required hospitalization and 858 -- or 1.7% of all cases -- had to be admitted

to an intensive care unit.

Four new community outbreaks were reported Tuesday -- two in business

settings, one in a restaurant/bar setting and one in a restaurant.

In the past seven days, 47 community outbreaks were confirmed, well

above the trigger of seven or more in a week's time. A community setting

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

of different households over the past 14 days. The county uses outbreak to get

a larger sense of the pandemic locally, but the state does not include the

statistic in its weekly report.

Students living in three residence halls at Point Loma Nazarene

University were ordered to shelter in place on Tuesday after ``an increase of

12 cases on the Point Loma campus,'' according to university officials.

The latest cases brings the university's case total to 16, according

to the university's COVID dashboard. No employees have tested positive for the

illness.

In a news release Tuesday, campus officials said they identified three

positive cases in Klassen Hall (3rd North), four positive cases in

Hendricks Hall (1st South), three positive cases in Young Hall (4th Floor) and

two unrelated cases in Nease Hall.

Campus officials also said that 50 students had been identified as

``close contacts,'' meaning they were within 6 feet of an infected person for

at least 15 minutes, either with or without a face covering.

Another metric the state released Tuesday is the health equity metric,

which finds the positivity rate of the county's least healthy quartile. San

Diego County's health equity is 5.7%, slightly less than double the county's

positive testing average.

The metric will be used to determine how quickly a county may advance

through the reopening plan.

Counties with a large disparity between the least and most sick

members of a community will not be punished for the disparity by sliding back

into more restrictive tiers, but such a disparity will stop counties from

advancing to less-restrictive tiers.

To advance to the orange tier, the county would need to report a

metric of less than 5.3%.

According to the state guidelines, the health equity metric will

measure socially determined health circumstances, such as a community's

transportation, housing, access to health care and testing, access to healthy

food and parks.

Neighborhoods are grouped and scored by census tracts on the Healthy

Places Index, healthyplacesindex.org.

The California Department of Public Health will update the county's

data next Tuesday.

 

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