It's the third new record in 10 days' time, according to county data. San Diego set a new single-day record on Dec. 29 (5,976), then another on Jan. 2 (8,313) and another on Jan. 7 (19,009).
San Diego County set a new single-day COVID-19 case record over the weekend, more than doubling the last high mark it set early last week.
Friday's 19,009 confirmed cases outpaced numbers from the weekend published by the county on Monday. There were 17,507 new cases confirmed Saturday and 12,563 confirmed Friday, according to the county's report (Daily numbers are published Monday through Friday, with data complete through the previous day.).
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It's the third new record in two week's time, according to county data. San Diego set a new single-day record on Dec. 29 (5,976), then another on Jan. 2 (8,313) and another on Jan. 7.
The county has averaged 39,963 tests per day over the last seven days. Of all those tests, 27.3% have come back positive.
The current surge generally mimics what San Diego and the rest of the country saw last winter. That surge, which kicked off in early November and didn't taper off until late January, pushed local hospital systems to their brink. This time around, local hospitalizations are trending up and hospitals are stressed, but capacity rates aren't triggering public restrictions like they were then.
In the past 30 days, hospitalizations have more than double from 303 to 837. The hospitalization rate for unvaccinated COVID-19 patients is 1.20, four times higher than the .27 rate for fully vaccinated people, according to the county.
Since March 11 up to Dec. 18, 71.5% of county COVID-19 cases, 81.8% of hospitalizations and 82.5% of deaths have occurred in people who weren't fully vaccinated.
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The first shipments of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in San Diego County in mid-December 2020 and by late April 1 million San Diegans had been fully vaccinated.
Hospitals are also dealing with staffing shortages due to health care workers getting swept up in the current surge.
NBC 7 checked the majority of the local health-care systems regarding staffing and received the following information as of Jan. 5:
- UC San Diego Health: 715 employees tested positive in the past seven days (196 in last 24 hours)
- Scripps Health: Approximately 600 out with COVID
- Sharp Health: 525 out with COVID
- Rady Childrens Hospital: 77 out with COVID
NBC 7 did not hear back from Palomar Health and Kaiser Permanente.
"This is unprecedented," UC San Diego Health CEO Patty Maysent told NBC 7. "This is what we, from the health systems point of view, what we were always concerned about."
Maysent's sentiment was seconded by Scripps Health CEO Chris Van Gorder.
"I can guarantee you pretty much, right now, that as the ambulances are coming in, we don’t have the staff we’re supposed to have to be able to care for those patients," Van Gorder said.
