Health

San Diego County COVID-19 Update – 5-24-2021

coronavirus illustration
Credit: Shutterstock
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Here is today’s COVID-19 update from the County Health and Human Services Agency with data through May 23.

Vaccination Progress:

  • Doses delivered: More than 4 million.
  • Doses administered: Almost 3.56 million.
  • Received at least one shot: Nearly 1.9 million or 67.7% of San Diegans 12 and older.
  • Fully vaccinated: Over 1.46 million or 52.3%.
  • The goal: fully vaccinate 75% of San Diego County residents 12 and older or 2,101,936 people.
  • To date, 90.3% of the goal population has received at least one vaccine and 69.7% are fully vaccinated.
  • More vaccination information can be found coronavirus-sd.com/vaccine.

State Metrics:

  • San Diego County’s state-calculated, adjusted case rate is currently 3.4 cases per 100,000 residents.
  • The testing positivity percentage is 1.6%.
  • The health equity metric is 2.1%.
  • CDPH assesses counties on a weekly basis. The next report is scheduled for Tuesday, May 25.

Community Setting Outbreaks:

  • No new community outbreaks were confirmed May 23.
  • Two new community outbreaks were confirmed May 22 in faith-based settings.
  • One new community outbreak was confirmed May 21 in a restaurant/bar setting.
  • In the past seven days (May 17 through May 23), 15 community outbreaks were confirmed.
  • The community outbreaks trigger is seven or more in seven days.

Testing:

  • 5,985 tests were reported to the County on May 23, and the percentage of new positive cases was 0.4%.
  • The 14-day rolling average percentage of positive cases is 1%. Target is less than 8.0%.
  • The 7-day, daily average of tests is 10,520.

Cases, Hospitalizations and ICU Admissions:

  • 25 COVID-19 cases were reported to the County on May 23. The region’s total is now 279,714.
  • 15,382 or 5.5% of all cases have required hospitalization.
  • 1,700 or 0.6% of all cases and 11.1% of hospitalized cases had to be admitted to an intensive care unit.

Deaths:

  • No new deaths were reported on May 23, 2021. The region’s total is 3,749.
  • Two previously reported deaths were removed from the case and death counts during routine quality assurance and reinspection because the cause was determined not to be COVID-19.
  • No new deaths were reported on May 22.
  • Three deaths were reported on May 21. A man in his 60s died Dec. 24, 2020 and two men in their 80s died Jan. 22 and Jan. 30 of this year. All had underlying medical conditions.
  • These three deaths were added to the list after a rigorous review of death certificates that were incorrect or incomplete and required the analysis of the patients’ medical records to determine if they were COVID-19 deaths.

More Information:

The more detailed data summaries found on the County’s coronavirus-sd.com website are updated around 5 p.m. daily.

José A. Álvarez is a communications specialist with the County of San Diego Communications Office. Contact