San Diego County announced it will end its COVID-19 local emergency proclamation on Tuesday, along with its local health emergency declarations and weekly updates.
Despite this, county officials say testing, treating, and vaccinating will continue.
“Our declaration of a local health emergency and local emergency proclamation will end Feb. 28, matching the end of the state’s declarations,” said County Public Health Officer Wilma J. Wooten, M.D., M.P.H. in a statement. “But make no mistake, this is not the time to let your guard down. The virus is still circulating throughout the community. People are still being hospitalized and dying. To protect yourself, your family, and your friends. We strongly urge people to get current with their COVID-19 vaccinations, including the bivalent booster.”
County officials say it will continue to update COVID-19 web pages weekly. County residents may also subscribe to the County’s Respiratory Virus Surveillance report to get continued weekly COVID-19 data reporting.
The County of San Diego said both COVID-19 vaccinations and treatment remain widely available for residents. COVID-19 primary series vaccines and bivalent boosters, as well as flu vaccines, are available at local pharmacies, medical providers’ offices, and County vaccination sites.
More than 2.69 million or 80.7% of San Diegans have received the primary series of one of the approved COVID-19 vaccines. According to the county, nearly 23% of 2,514,949 eligible San Diegans received bivalent boosters.
Still, the county received 1,774 COVID-19 cases in the past seven days, bringing the region’s total to 983,031 in the week ending Feb.18. A total of nine deaths were reported, bringing the region’s total to 5,7698.
Eight of the people who died were 65 and older and all nine had underlying medical conditions. Six of the people had been vaccinated and three were unvaccinated or had not completed the primary vaccine series.
Data updates to the County’s coronavirus-sd.com website will be published Thursdays around 5 p.m., with the exception of holidays. People can check online for the days and hours sites are open.
