COVID-19 Deaths More Than Doubled in Lakeside From 2020 to 2021: Voice of San Diego Report

During the second year of the pandemic, COVID-19 death rates increased in several East County communities as they dropped virtually everywhere else.

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NBC 7 has been watching the impact of COVID on hospitalization and deaths throughout the pandemic. We’ve reported on how certain ZIP codes across San Diego County were hit the hardest.

Now, following months of investigation, the Voice of San Diego (VOSD) has spotted an alarming trend in several East County communities.

The data discovered by the VOSD shows how COVID deaths jumped particularly in Lakeside during year two of the pandemic when they dropped virtually everywhere else.

"For this story what we found out is that deaths went down almost everywhere in the county, really dramatically but in a few ZIP codes they didn’t and that was most dramatic here in Lakeside," said VOSD journalist Will Huntsberry.

Huntsberry, fellow journalist Jesse Marx and with their team spent 18 months across 2020 and 2021 collecting data and analyzing COVID-19 deaths across San Diego County.

In their investigative report, they found that Lakeside had the 62nd-highest death rate in 2020 in San Diego County and then jumped to the highest death rate in 2021, despite COVID-19 vaccines being readily available.

"Combine all those things together: vaccine skepticism, healthcare that’s been disrupted, people letting their guard down, and I think that’s the perfect storm for what happened in Lakeside," Marx said.

To read the investigation on The Voice of San Diego click here.

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