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County switches vaccination registry as it pares down COVID-19 information

A Vons supermarket in San Diego County offers COVID-19 vaccines on March 21, 2022.
Alexander Nguyen
A Vons supermarket in San Diego County offers COVID-19 vaccines on March 21, 2022.

The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency is today using the California Immunization Registry to record the number of San Diegans who have received COVID-19 and other recommended vaccines, switching from its previous system.

The switch was required by the California Department of Public Health so that most health care systems across the state are using the same software to record COVID-19 vaccinations and all other vaccines administered locally.

The transition resulted in minor changes in vaccination data in several categories, the HHSA reported, including age, gender and ethnic breakdowns, as well as the number of people vaccinated in different cities and ZIP codes.

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"Because the two systems have slight differences, minor changes in our local reporting were anticipated," said Dr. Wilma J. Wooten, county public health officer. "County staff have been working closely with the state as we made this transition, as well as manually verifying data and records in both systems so that they remain aligned."

More than 2.94 million or 93.4% of San Diegans age 5 and older are at least partially vaccinated, while more than 2.6 million or 82.8% are fully vaccinated. A total of 1,301,056 or 58% of 2,242,187 eligible San Diegans have received a booster shot.

Additionally, the county will begin to report COVID-19 data only on Mondays and Thursdays, following a transition several months ago to report only on non-holiday weekdays.

On Wednesday, the HHSA reported 409 new infections and one death, increasing the county's cumulative totals to 758,715 cases and 5,237 deaths.

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A total of 591 cases of the BA.2 variant have been reported in the county, with one hospitalization.

The number of COVID-positive patients in San Diego County hospitals increased by one person to 103, according to the latest state data.

Of those patients, 11 were being treated in intensive care, same as the previous day. The total number of available hospital beds countywide decreased by 19 to 242.