San Diego County public health officials reported 348 new cases of coronavirus and 10 more deaths Wednesday while acknowledging some test results are missing from the state.
Earlier Wednesday, the California Department of Public Health reported that a technical glitch was delaying results from tests performed by commercial laboratories.
Supervisor Nathan Fletcher told a media briefing that he had no estimate of how many results from San Diego County might have been delayed, but promised, “When we get the missing data from the commercial labs and the state of California, we will report how many cases were missing, and how many were negative and positive.”
Out of 6,981 local test results received in the past day, 5.0% were positive, and the 14-day rolling average of positive results ticked down to 5.3%.
Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, reported progress on two indicators of the pandemic — the number of new cases per 100,000 population over 14 days, and the percentage of new cases investigated within 24 hours.
The first indicator, which determines whether a county is placed on the state’s watch list, has fallen to 105.7 — just above the threshold of 100.
“This metric has been decreasing since July 30,” Wooten said. “Hopefully next week we will see that particular metric normalized.”
The percentage of new cases investigated within 24 hours has jumped from just 9% a week ago to 73% as the county rapidly recruited hundreds of workers amid a surge in positive tests.
A third metric that is not improving is the number of recent community outbreaks. Such outbreaks are defined as three or more cases in the same location involving people from different households.
Wooten said there were five new outbreaks reported in the past day, for a total of 30 over the past week. The goal is to have fewer than seven at any time.
She noted that most outbreaks have occurred in businesses, healthcare facilities, and restaurant or bar settings. Those have accounted for 60% of the 164 community outbreaks to date.
Since the first local case was reported in March, there have been 631,968 tests performed in San Diego County, resulting in 30,864 cases and 578 deaths.
