San Diego County health officials have reported 1,066 new COVID-19 infections, raising the region's total to 80,084 cases, while the death toll remained at 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 — or 5.7% of overall cases — have required hospitalization and 1,016 patients — 1.3% — had to be admitted to an intensive care unit.
Nine community outbreaks were confirmed Sunday. Over the previous seven days, 85 community outbreaks were confirmed. 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 public health officials announced Saturday that a COVID-19 outbreak occurred at Awaken Church in Kearny Mesa affecting churchgoers who attended services between Nov. 15 and 22. This is the second time the county has publicly identified an outbreak location, the first was San Diego State University.
San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher told KPBS Midday Edition that the county disclosed the outbreak location on Saturday because the church was not cooperating with the county's contact tracing efforts. Fletcher said that more than a dozen COVID-19 infections have been connected to the church. Despite the outbreak, the church had indoor services on Sunday and many attendees were not wearing masks, according to reporting from The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The county is asking anyone who attended services between Nov. 15 and 22 to quarantine for two weeks. Officials add that anyone exposed to close contacts of those infected should also get tested.
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 seven 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.
