Covid-19

County Map Showing Neighborhood Case Rates Paints Grim Picture

The county's case rate dashboard is updated every Thursday

San Diego County

Data published by San Diego County every Thursday showing coronavirus case rates in individual cities and ZIP codes paints a detailed picture of which communities are being hit the hardest.

The interactive dashboard color codes neighborhoods and municipalities in accordance with the state's four-tier reopening blueprint.

Click here to see the county's dashboard.

San Diego County's demotion into the most restrictive tier, the Purple Tier, on Nov. 3 coincided with a worsening case outlook across the nation, and it wasn't much of a surprise to see the majority of the county map shaded in that color when the data was first published Nov. 12.

Less than a month later, data published on Dec. 3 showed there wasn't a single non-military zone that wasn't shaded purple. Snapshots of the map from Dec. 3 and Nov. 12 illustrate the worsening situation.

San Diego County
A map showing colored case rate tiers for each city in San Diego County as of Dec. 3, 2020.
A snapshot of a map showing case rates by municipality in San Diego County.
San Diego County
A snapshot of a map showing case rates by municipality in San Diego County as of Nov. 12, 2020.

Now one week later, the map looks exactly the same, and the rates calculated in some cities and ZIP codes are so high they'd qualify for a worse color tier than purple if one existed.

The dashboard notes that "jurisdictions with less than 20 cases in the seven-day period can result in unstable rate estimates and should be interpreted with caution."

Two weeks ago, nearly all of rural East County and most communities south of Interstate 8 showed case rates well above the Purple Tier threshold of 7, but some communities north of State Route 52 were shaded red, or even orange.

Since then the county has reported record-high positivity rates, hospitalizations, and ICU bed occupancy. The same trends is happening statewide, leading Governor Gavin Newsom to enforce a second stay-at-home order that is expected to hit Southern California this month.

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