San Diego County public health officials reported 171 new COVID-19 infections and six additional deaths related to the illness, raising the region's totals to 45,596 cases and 773 deaths.
Three men and three women died between Sept. 17 and Sept. 22, and their ages ranged from mid-50s to early 90s.
Of the 13,609 tests reported Thursday, just 1% returned positive, lowering the 14-day rolling average percentage of positive cases to 3.4%. The county has averaged 8,828 daily tests over the past week.
Of the total COVID-19 cases in the county, 3,460, or 7.6%, have been hospitalized with another 814, or 1.8%, spending some time in an intensive care unit.
San Diego State University reported 20 of Thursday's new cases were connected to the university, which now has 933 total confirmed or probable cases — including four employees and 13 visitors to the campus.
A total of seven new community outbreaks were reported Thursday, raising the number in the past week to 15. Two of the community outbreaks were reported in restaurant settings, two in restaurant/bar settings, two in business settings and one in a faith-based setting.
The number of community outbreaks remains above the trigger of seven or more in seven days. 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.
According to county data, 61.5% of those hospitalized with the illness have been Hispanic or Latino, even as that ethnic group represents around 35% of the county's population. By comparison, 23.3% of those hospitalized have been white, 7.2% Asian and 5.8% Black.
