The COVID-19 case total in San Diego County has soared past the 18,000 mark as public health officials report more than 500 new cases for the second time this week.
There were 560 new COVID-19 cases and nine deaths reported Thursday, raising the county's totals to 18,402 cases and 415 deaths.
Of the 8,950 tests reported Thursday, 6% returned positive. A total of 411,444 tests have been completed in the county. An average of 7,497 tests have been reported in the last week, and the 14-day rolling average for tests returning positive is 6%.
Of the nine people whose deaths were reported Thursday, five were men and four women. They died between June 27 and July 7 and ranged in age from 50 to 89. All but one had underlying medical conditions.
A record-high 578 cases, a 10% positive test rate and 12 deaths were reported Tuesday.
A new daily high of 38 COVID-19 positive patients were hospitalized in Wednesday's data, and about 136 of every 100,000 San Diegans are testing positive for the illness, well above the state's criterion of 100 per 100,000. Total COVID-19 hospitalizations have inched up over the last several weeks, said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county's public health officer.
There have been 1,974 people hospitalized due to the illness, 10.7% of those who have tested positive. Of those, 525 or 2.9% had to be admitted to an intensive care unit.
"The pandemic is not over," Wooten reminded county residents this week. "The disease is still widespread in our community, as evidenced by the rising cases."
Despite the numbers, some local leaders believe San Diego County needs to have the authority to open its businesses. County supervisors Kristin Gaspar and Jim Desmond and San Diego City Councilman Chris Cate sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday evening, asking the governor to rescind orders to shutter indoor business in multiple industries — including bars, restaurants, museums, cardrooms, zoos and theaters.
"This statewide one-size-fits-all approach to closing entire business sectors is misguided as evidenced by the many sectors in San Diego forced to close their doors again despite not having contributed at all to the rise in our local cases. As such, we are requesting the review of our county's data to take place as soon as possible, thereby allowing San Diego businesses to re- open if appropriate," they wrote in the joint letter.
"It is time to give local control of this public health emergency to the elected leaders and clinical team closest to the people so that we can begin community specific healing based on local data. We are confident that San Diego County is well-positioned to serve as a model in this effort," the letter said.
A new community-based outbreak was reported Thursday in a bar/restaurant. A total of 10 cases "fell off" the weekly metric Thursday, bringing the total number of community outbreaks over the last week to 15, well over the county metric of seven outbreaks in seven days. A community outbreak is defined as three or more COVID-19 cases in a setting from different households.
More than 75% of the community outbreaks have been traced to restaurants and bars, and 45 community outbreaks remain active, tied to 137 cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday's data.
An additional 23 outbreaks have been traced to skilled nursing facilities and 27 to other nursing facilities.
