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County expected to drop into red tier this week, after press time

San Diego County was looking likely to drop down into the second-highest “red” tier of the state’s coronavirus reopening framework as of press time Monday, March 15.

California's Department of Public Health modified the Blueprint for a Safer Economy to lead with opening activities when vaccines have been deployed to the hardest-hit communities – the floor for the purple tier will drop to 10 daily cases per 100,000 population once the state delivers a minimum 2 million doses to what it considers the hardest-hit Californians, a threshold that the state estimates it will hit this week.

San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said last week that he was confident case numbers would allow the county to post a sub-10-per-100,000 case rate on Tuesday, March 16 – after Village News’ press deadline – which would allow the county to enter the red tier as early as the following day, Wednesday, March 17.

Once in the red tier, there will be limited allowances of indoor dining, gyms, movie theaters and other businesses and services.

Meanwhile, the California Department of Public Health updated reopening guidance on Thursday, March 11, to allow for outdoor breweries, wineries and distilleries to operate without having to serve food.

The change does not apply to bars in the purple or red tiers. For alcohol-producing businesses that already serve food, not much will change. Breweries, wineries and distilleries will still be able to operate as restaurants under the county's current tier restrictions.

“I have been working with the San Diego Brewers Guild and the Governor's Office for several weeks to establish a safe reopening plan, and I am glad breweries will now be able to open under the same guidelines as wineries,'' Fletcher said. “This is good for brewers, good for our economic recovery and good for San Diego County.”

The new guidance, which went into effect Saturday, March 16, also requires breweries to use a reservation system, limit patrons' stays to no more than 90 minutes and end all on-site consumption by 8 p.m.

In the Fallbrook area, the 92028 ZIP code was already showing a coronavirus case rate of 6.4 per 100,000 as of the week of Feb. 21-27, the most recent week for which information is available, a level that would allow the area to move into the red tier were if measured as its own county.

That case rate is a drop from the 9.0 per 100,000 reported Feb. 14-20. The 92028 ZIP code showed 22 new coronavirus cases during Feb. 21-27, down from 31 the week prior.

The county combines Bonsall’s 92003 ZIP code with Vista; the combined area had a case rate of 5.6 per 100,000 between Feb. 21-27, with 35 new cases reported in that timespan. Both of those statistics are down from the week prior – Bonsall-Vista had 44 new cases and a case rate was 11.7 per 100,000 in the week of Feb. 14-20.

There have been a total of 3,600 reported coronavirus cases in 92028, and 4,955 in the Bonsall-Vista jurisdiction, since the start of the pandemic last March.

Across San Diego County, health officials reported a total of 2,503 new coronavirus cases between Monday, March 8, and Sunday, March 14 – about 300-400 per day until Sunday, when only 198 cases were reported.

With Sunday's data, the total number of cases in the county rose to 265,471 and the death toll edged up to 3,452. Of 10,349 tests reported Sunday, 2% returned positive.

There were three community outbreaks reported Sunday with 15 reported in the last seven days. Cases associated with those outbreaks totaled 55.

Vaccine eligibility expanded again at press time Monday, this time to people

with underlying health conditions, subject to vaccine availability.

All told, 709,220 – or 26.4% of San Diego County residents over the age of 16 – have received at least one dose of the two-shot vaccines and 430,376 people – or 16% – have been fully vaccinated.

The Del Mar Fairgrounds COVID-19 vaccination super site reopened Monday after vaccine shortages left it shuttered over the weekend. A vaccination event was also held at Palomar College’s Fallbrook campus last week, with more to be announced in the future.

Will Fritz can be reached by email at [email protected].

City News Service contributed to this report.

 

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