San Bernardino County is failing the state’s new coronavirus metric. State public health officials released new figures to ensure counties aren’t reopening while neighborhoods with socioeconomic challenges have a much higher share of positive coronavirus tests than the rest of their counties. Unless San Bernardino County improves its ranking on those figures, which the state says measure “health equity,” the numbers will prevent it from moving to a less-restrictive tier. To move into a less-restrictive tier, counties will now have to show that their most disadvantaged neighborhoods do not have significantly higher spread. The census neighborhoods in each county with the most socioeconomic obstacles must have no more than 8% of coronavirus tests coming back positive for a county to enter the red tier. That’s the same as the requirement for the county overall. In San Bernardino County, which is trying to move to the red tier, the positivity rate in those neighborhoods is 8.1%.
