The state requires San Diego County to lower the rate of coronavirus transmissions in the 25 percent of the region with the lowest scores on the California Healthy Places Index.
This measure, created by the Public Health Alliance, rates each census tract in the state on a range of socioeconomic factors — from income and education to healthy food access and air quality — to find the places with the most inequitable access to the resources necessary for a healthy life.
San Diego County must find ways to lower the coronavirus positivity rate, defined as the percentage of all tests that come back positive, if it wants to move to the less-restrictive tiers of the sate’s four-tier reopening system. Currently the rate in the 25 percent of local tracts with the lowest index scores is 5.7, almost twice as high as the overall county rate of 3.0, according to the most-recent assessment from the California Department of Public Health.
