San Diego County health officials Sunday reported 1,066 new COVID-19 infections, raising the region’s total to 80,084 cases, with no new deaths, leaving the overall death toll of 997.

Sunday marked the 19th consecutive day that more than 600 new cases were reported.

Of the total number of cases in the county, 4,603 have required hospitalization.

Nine community outbreaks were confirmed Sunday. A community outbreak is defined as three or more COVID-19 cases in a setting and in people of different households over the past 14 days.

San Diego County fell deeper into the most restrictive purple tier of the state’s four-tiered reopening plan Tuesday, with an unadjusted 21.5 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people. Even with an adjusted rate of 13.1 per 100,000 due to significant testing increases by local health authorities, that number far exceeds the strictest tier’s baseline of 7 daily cases per 100,000.

The testing positivity percentage is 3.1%, placing it in the less restrictive, orange, tier for that metric.

The county’s health equity metric, which looks at the testing positivity for areas with the lowest healthy conditions, is 9.3% and is in the purple tier. This metric does not move counties to more restrictive tiers but is required to advance to a less restrictive tier.

— City News Service

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