SAN DIEGO — Just two positive coronavirus cases made the difference in keeping San Diego County off the path toward the purple tier this week. County health officials found the error just before the California Department of Public Health published the county’s case rate Tuesday.
Dr. Wilma Wooten, M.D., M.P.H., the county’s public health officer, said the state mistakenly included two inmates who tested positive at federal prisons. Under the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, all inmates are excluded when calculating a county’s case rate because they do not mix with the public.
“One-tenth of a point, the rate decreased. We could do more to ensure that the unadjusted rate is below [the threshold] and at least seven or less,” said Wooten during the county’s weekly briefing.
The cases made a difference because the state rounds unadjusted case rates to the nearest tenth. The two inmates would have made San Diego County's unadjusted rate 7.824. However, excluding them results in a 7.816. After adding in adjustments for doing more testing than the state median, the rate went from a 7.054 to 7.046, which rounds down to a 7.0 instead of up to a 7.1. Anything above a 7.0 is considered the purple tier.
“We could not have gotten any closer to the purple tier without tripping into it than we did,” said Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who represents District 4. “Because we’ve been testing above the state average, the state adjustment factor has allowed us to stay in the red tier, but we don’t want to live or die each week in the tiers, in the context of how many tests we’ve done.”
Health officials have repeatedly said the county cannot test its way into a lower tier. It must lower its overall cases. So far, San Diego has struggled to lower its cases. It has not posted an unadjusted case rate below 6.8 since early September. The county needs a rate below 4.0 for 14 consecutive days to qualify for the orange tier.
This week, the county saw a slight increase this week in cases among San Diegans aged 0-19, which was expected as more schools reopen.
“As more kids return to school it’s very important that we follow the guidelines that the schools and school districts are giving to keep kids prepared. That starts with getting the kids ready to go, traveling to the school, being at school and then coming home and any after-school activities in which they may be involved with other kids,” said Dr. Eric McDonald, M.D., M.P.H., who heads the Epidemiology and Immunization Services branch of the county’s Health and Human Services Agency.
The state will next calculate San Diego County's case rate on Tuesday, Oct. 27. If it is above a 7.0, it would put the county on the path, again, of potentially returning to purple when it is calculated on Nov. 3.
“What’s happening is people are lowering their guards, going back to how they functioned before COVID-19. Going to gatherings, gathering at peoples’ homes or at public locations and not adhering to the preventative strategies [are things] we talk about every Wednesday,” said Wooten. “There’s no one event. It is across the board the behavior and it doesn’t take a large effort here.”