San Diego County Reports 1,030 New Positive COVID-19 Cases Over Fourth Of July Weekend

Speaker 1: 00:00 We will probably learn more about what being on the state's COVID-19 watchlist means when the County officials hold a news conference this afternoon, KPBS reporter, Matt Hoffman has been monitoring COVID rates and responses over the holiday weekend, and he joins us now, Matt, welcome to the program. Good afternoon, Maureen. So as we heard from governor Newsome, San Diego is now one of 23 counties. The state is monitoring on his COVID-19 watch list. Does that take decision making about reopening out of the hands of County officials? Speaker 2: 00:35 Uh, basically the answer is yes, it does. So San Diego County, the state as the state says has an elevated case rate due to widespread COVID-19 disease transmission. So basically when a County is on this watch list for three or more days, they must take actions to dial back, which is exactly what the County has been hinting at all week. These restrictions that could be coming as early as today. That's certainly what we're expecting them to announce later this afternoon is more restrictions Maureen. Speaker 1: 01:00 So San Diego has already closed bars, already asked restaurants to close at 10:00 PM. What other restrictions could be coming. Speaker 2: 01:08 Yeah. You know, we're, we're thinking that they're going to be restrictions on indoor activity specifically for these certain sectors. So restricting into activity for dining in restaurants. So sort of, you know, going back to what we were before, you know, take out delivery only, uh, that also includes restricting indoor activities for wineries tasting rooms, uh, movie theaters, uh, family entertainment centers, card rooms, um, even things like museums and zoos also sort of inserts. Interestingly, you know, previously County officials had said that they were going to put a month's long pause on any future reopenings. You know, the state has started giving any guidance on stage four activities. Those are large events than here in San Diego. You know, things like Lego land, sea world eager to get reopened. You know, the Kaboom music festival is supposed to be downtown later in September, this year at this rate, it looks like that these might not happen, or there's going to be a much longer pause than they were anticipating. Speaker 1: 01:55 The number of positive cases announced by San Diego over the holiday weekend was very disturbing. Tell us about that. And if you can put it in some perspective, the number was over a thousand, but it was a multi-day tally. Right? Speaker 2: 02:08 Right. Yeah. So a couple of days there, you know, 4th of July holiday lag and reporting, no COVID deaths reported over the weekend, but you're right. Just about over a thousand cases over those two days. And keep in mind, officials want to look at the, you know, when they look at these, they want to look at the rate of positive cases. So stick with me on these numbers here, you know, daily, total sum over the weekend had about a six and a 7% positivity rate. Now the two week average, keep in mind, the County looks for weekly trends and data is a 5.6% positivity rate. Now, Maureen, you go back just a couple of weeks and it was half of that. So we've doubled our positivity rate. And just about two weeks, you know, the governor says statewide, our positivity rate is about 6.8%. So we're still under that, but definitely concerning to officials. Speaker 1: 02:46 What is it that caused San Diego County to make it on the state's watch list? Speaker 2: 02:51 Yeah, basically, you know, the, the rate of infection. So we, you know, basically the state says they want, you know, no more than a hundred cases per 100,000 residents. And according to the data on the state's website right now, San Diego County sitting at about 129 cases per a hundred thousand residents, you know, we are meeting the rest of the metrics. That's that, that's the one metric that we've been on this list for three days, for re we have a meeting meeting the rest of the metrics in terms of testing positivity rate, percentage of ICU beds available, and percentage of ventilators currently available. But we are still on that list. And like we said, we are expecting more restrictions to becoming announcing just in a couple of hours. Speaker 1: 03:23 So let's go back over there, July 4th weekend for a minute, the state asked San Diego cities to close their beach parking lots, but many didn't they didn't. Why not? Speaker 2: 03:32 Yeah. You know, basically city of San Diego officials say that they were given late notice, you know, the state, you know, sending a letter to city managers saying, Hey, could you help us out close your beach? Parking lots. You guys are some of the only beaches that are going to be open in Southern California. And they just won't ask them to do that. Now, you know, we saw places like Oceanside and Carlsbad making that move to go ahead and shutter their beach, parking lots, state beach, parking lots too. But you know, places like the city of San Diego just saying, Hey, look, you know, we got late notice on this, but you know, we, we made sure that everyone else fall precautious in terms of masks and social distancing. So basically they were saying just a miscommunication late notice here. Speaker 1: 04:02 Well, yeah. What is the consensus about this holiday weekend were first of all, the beaches crowded where most people wearing mask and what about social distancing? Speaker 2: 04:12 Yeah. You know, we heard the governor today saying that he was very proud of California and this holiday weekend, you know, modifying their usual holiday celebrations. Um, you know, you talk about locally here at the beaches, the San Diego union Tribune is reporting that San Diego lifeguard say, you know, over the weekend, it was much slower than usual with no large lingering crowds into the night. They quoted one North County lifeguard Sergeant that's a pretty unremarkable weekend. So definitely not the large crowds that we're seeing in a normal non-covered situation. Um, and so we'll see if that sort of pans out. I know, you know, talking to officials from UC San Diego health, they're seeing, um, hospitalizations and people on ventilators coming from Memorial day weekend. So we know that there's a lag in some of these things. So we'll see in a few weeks where we are for seeing a lot of cases coming out of this 4th of July weekend. Speaker 1: 04:52 And what about enforcement? Any news from police departments or the sheriff on how the mask order was being enforced? Speaker 2: 04:59 Yeah, sort of like the big E word where everyone's talking about right. Is enforcement and the governor, you know, he talked a lot about it today, enforcement enforcement enforcement. He's putting up that $2 billion. He wants it to happen on a local level. Right. We heard about him saying that he's sending out these hot teams, you know, they may thousands of contacts over the weekend, but he talked about, you know, having cooperation from the local level, if they don't see that cooperation from the local level, then they will step in. And we know that a lot of jurisdictions here are taking an educational approach to this, you know, gaining compliance through education instead of going out, you know, giving a thousand dollars tickets that may carry jail time. So we do know that the County said that they are working on a enforcement plan, um, with the local law enforcement. So be interesting, you know, we might have a chance to ask them about that today, about what that looks like in reality knows that enforcement. And I think, you know, the question of what does enforcement ultimately look like? Is it education? Is there, is it writing citations? I think that is sort of remains to be seen. Speaker 1: 05:48 Is there a primary cause for the community outbreaks that we're seeing? Speaker 2: 05:52 Yeah. You know, it's not looking good. We've seen 22 outbreaks in the last seven days and we've more bar restaurants outbreaks just in the last couple of weeks. I mean, you know, last couple of days, there were three new outbreaks all at restaurants. Um, and that's, we're expecting to see some of these new, additional guidelines. So we did her her earlier when the governor moved last week to shutter bars in many counties throughout the state, he said, that's the largest area of concern from health directors. And we're seeing obviously with a lot of these restrictions that they're targeting a restaurant and a bar industry. Speaker 1: 06:22 Now you're going to be reporting on the County update later this afternoon. What is it that you're going to be listening for? Speaker 2: 06:28 You know, I'm curious to see in terms of the dining and, you know, we talk about no more dining and for indoors, does that include dining outdoors on patios? You know, there's some that are saying you, we're going to be back to where we were in terms of just take out delivery only. So looking for some clarification on that, also seeing if, you know, in terms of right now, I don't believe that this includes barbershops nail salons, um, in terms of those indoor activities, I think those will be spared, so to speak, um, also enforcement. What does that enforcement look like? The governor, again, calling today, we want to see more enforcement, but I think for people just to keep in mind, you know, uh, you know, if the announcement is expected that we're having today, um, it's sort of gonna be rolling back to where we were a few months ago, you know, with no restaurants allowing for dining service. So we're going to be a lot of takeout and a lot of delivery. Um, and that's going to be for at least three weeks more. Speaker 1: 07:08 And just one last question, isn't Del Mar supposed to be opening. Uh, the, I mean, where, where is that? Speaker 2: 07:15 Yeah, the Delmar's kicking off it's summer season and it's still going on. It's kicking off this weekend on Friday, but it's going to be a little bit different for the first time. You know, there it's gonna be an empty grand stands. So they're going to be still be televising their games. They'll be doing off-track betting that's the racetracks as they do. They get a lot of their off-track bets come from off, off track. So that's like online bedding, things like that. So there's summer seasons still moving on right now though? No crowds morning. Speaker 1: 07:36 Okay. Well thanks a lot. I've been speaking with KPBS reporter, Matt Hoffman. Thanks Matt. Thanks Maureen.