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How to get San Diego County off state watch list

San Diego county’s case rate has exceeded the state monitoring threshold for three consecutive weeks.

SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — San Diego health officials stressed everyone needs to do their part to help the county reduce the number of coronavirus cases and reopen more businesses. The county’s case rate has exceeded the state monitoring threshold for three consecutive weeks.

The county urged residents to continue practicing good hygiene, distancing themselves from people not in their household and using a face-covering in public.

Data indicates as more businesses reopened over the past month, people became lax in adhering to guidelines. In May, there were just eight community outbreaks while there were 47 community outbreaks in the first three weeks of July. A community outbreak is determined when workers trace three or more cases from separate households to a common setting.

The county continued urging residents to frequently wash their hands for 20 seconds, which gives soap time to break down the virus.

Face coverings continue to be required in public settings where physical distancing cannot be maintained. Research shows they are effective in helping to stop an asymptomatic person from transmitting the virus to others.

“If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really think in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control,” said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a JAMA Live webcast last week.

Initially, San Diego County was supposed to get off the state “watch list” on July 28 if it was able to reduce the rate of cases. However, the state later removed a timeline to get off the list as cases continued to rise statewide. As of July 21, San Diego had 149.2 cases for every 100,000 residents of the preceding 14 days. Previous state requirements mandated counties have a rate lower than 100 for three consecutive days to get off the list.

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