While San Diego County continues to see rising COVID- 19 cases, more than two million residents are now fully vaccinated, bringing the region closer to its vaccination goal, it was announced Wednesday.
The county reached the milestone over the weekend, and by Wednesday, a total of 2,015,700, or 71.9%, of residents 12 and older, had received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot.
"Great job, San Diegans," said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county's public health officer. "The more people who get vaccinated the closer we will be to achieving our vaccination goal."
While public health officials celebrated the achievement, the region also crossed another milestone this week. With 1,204 new COVID-19 cases reported Tuesday and 908 reported on Wednesday, the cumulative number of cases now exceeds 300,000. As of Wednesday, the number was 301,100.
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San Diego County's case rate is 20.4 cases per 100,000 residents as of Tuesday when a total of 11,748 tests were reported to the county, and the percentage of new positive cases was 7.7%.
A total of 59 new community outbreaks were confirmed in the past seven days: 19 in restaurant/bar settings, 14 in business settings, five in faith-based settings, four in restaurant settings, four in daycare/preschool/childcare settings, three in school settings, three in a hotel/resort/spa setting, two in emergency services settings, and one each in a retail setting, a government setting, a health care setting, a construction setting and in a residential setting.
Additionally, seven deaths have been counted since last week's report, increasing the region's total to 3,805. Five men and two women died between July 15-31: one in their 70s, four in their 60s, one in their 50s and one in their 30s. Six had underlying medical conditions and one did not.
The county set a goal of vaccinating 75% of the 2.8 million residents who are eligible to get the vaccine, which comes out to 2,101,936 people. Around 86,000 more San Diegans are needed to reach that target, which is 5% higher than the state and national goals.
"We're confident we'll achieve that goal," Wooten said, adding that there are more than 284,000 San Diegans who are partially vaccinated. "However, we must keep going if we want to prevent the spread of COVID-19, move the economy forward and get back to our pre-pandemic way of life."
Given the increasing demand for COVID-19 testing, the county is opening six additional sites throughout the region this week.
The new sites are located at Cal State San Marcos, four at county clinics and one at San Diego State University -- scheduled to open later this week.
Some of the new or existing sites require appointments. For a list of locations and more information, visit coronavirus-sd.com/vaccine.
