San Diego County public health officials reported 282 new cases of coronavirus on Monday and welcomed news that it will leave the state’s pandemic monitoring list.
Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, told a media briefing that officials expect San Diego County to be dropped from the list on Tuesday.
“We anticipate, as was announced by the Governor today, that we would come off the list tomorrow,” she said, noting this is three days later than initially expected.
She said that according to the state’s separate tally, the weekly total of new cases per 100,000 population has been below the key threshold of 100 since Saturday. The figure reported Monday was 89.8.
If this metric stays below 100 for the next 14 days, then K-12 schools can open for in-class instruction on Aug. 31. The state is also reviewing whether other activities can be permitted.
“We have seen good news in recent days with our numbers continuing to decline,” said Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, but he cautioned that “getting off the state monitoring list is not a finish line.”
No more deaths were reported Monday, and the rate of positive tests continued to decline.
Out of 6,377 test results received in the past day, 4.4% were positive, and the 14-day rolling average of positive cases ticked down to 4.2%.
There were two new community outbreaks reported, both in a grocery setting, for a seven-day total of 21.
Since the first local case was reported in March, there have been 733,081 tests performed in San Diego County, resulting in 34,960 cases and 626 deaths.
