19 NEW OUTBREAKS IN S.D. COUNTY

Test positivity, case rate metrics are holding steady

San Diego County officials confirmed 19 new COVID-19 community outbreaks on Wednesday — a sharp uptick compared to the rest of the week.

But don’t expect that to change how many tables are open the next time you walk into your favorite restaurant.

There have been 32 community outbreaks confirmed over the past seven days. In theory, seven or more outbreaks over a seven-day period should trigger the county to modify its public health order.

In theory.

In practice, that likely won’t happen. The county has consistently hit its community outbreak trigger without rethinking regulations around the opening or reopening of businesses, schools and other establishments. That’s because the state doesn’t use the number of outbreaks to determine when and how counties can reopen. Instead, it uses case rate and test positivity.

By those measures, San Diego County has held steady. The state announced Tuesday that the county remains in the second-most restrictive tier. To get into a less-restrictive tier, San Diego County will have to reduce test positivity among the county’s underserved communities, as defined by the state’s “health equity” score. The spike in confirmed community outbreaks was the highlight of the county’s Thursday coronavirus report. But the outbreak data was scant on specifics. The county stated that, of the 19 outbreaks, six were in businesses, six in restaurant/bar settings, two in grocery stores, two in restaurants, one in a food processing setting, one in a residence, and one in a hair salon or barbershop.

But it’s unclear how many cases are connected to these outbreaks. And San Diego County (unlike Los Angeles) still doesn’t disclose exactly where outbreaks happen.

Other measures in the report are in line with recent trends. Out of 10,915 tests reported to the county Wednesday, 291 were positive for COVID-19. That pencils out to nearly 3 percent, which also happens to be the average percent positive among cases reported over the past 14 days. Hospitalizations have also held steady, with 272 San Diegans in the hospital due to COVID-19. That’s still a modest fraction of the more than 4,500 beds in use across the county Wednesday; the county’s current capacity is slightly over 5,900 beds.

These numbers reports have become routine, but there’s still one figure that puts the pandemic’s impact on San Diego County in stark relief: 819.

That’s how many San Diegans have died of COVID-19, including six new deaths reported Wednesday — four women and two men, ranging in age from their late 40s to mid-70s.

All had underlying medical conditions. But so do six in 10 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.