This week marked several milestones in the fight against COVID-19. The first is quite sobering: COVID-19 has now claimed more than 200,000 lives in the United States. In San Diego County, COVID-19 has become the sixth leading cause of death, and yesterday county health officials said they expect it could move to the number four spot, overtaking accidents, by the end of this year.
On a positive note, San Diego County this week administered its one millionth COVID-19 test. Remembering just six months ago when COVID-19 tests were in scarce supply, this is a huge accomplishment. Rapid and plentiful testing is still considered a key tool in slowing the spread.
The final bit of news is from the state, which announced its lowest testing positivity rate since the start of the pandemic at 2.8%. This also marks the first time that number has fallen below 3%.
Case numbers
Since my update last Tuesday, 12 more cases have been reported in Carlsbad for a total of 691. We estimate that 32 of those cases are currently active.
Someone asked this week what the term active cases means. Based on what is known about the average amount of time someone with COVID-19 has symptoms and is contagious, we calculate the figure starting with when test results are reported for people who live in the City of Carlsbad. This is not an exact science because people don’t always get tested right away, and the time it takes for test results to come back is getting shorter, but still varies quite a bit. However, the active case count can still give you some idea of how prevalent known cases are among our residents.
