Updated: How close is your California county to getting off – or on – the COVID watchlist?

As the California Department of Public Health continues to correct the state’s coronavirus data following the data glitch that complicated COVID-19 reporting at the beginning of August, most of the state’s 58 counties are showing elevated transmission of the virus.

Per capita case data hasn’t returned to the state’s monitoring list of counties, often called the “watchlist,” but data that is available elsewhere on the state website on Thursday showed 46 counties above the per 100,000 resident caseload required.

To avoid the list, counties must meet a number of criteria: a case rate of fewer than 100 cases per 100,000 population over the past 14 days, a positive test rate of less than 8% over the past seven days, a less than 10% increase in COVID hospitalizations over the past three days, and have more than 20% ICU beds available.

Counties must fail these criteria for three consecutive days to be placed on the watchlist, which was been frozen at 38 counties for the first two weeks of August as the state worked out its data glitches. On Monday, Aug. 17, the state added five counties to the list and removed one — bring the list to 42 counties total. Santa Cruz County was removed, while Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mendocino and Sierra counties were added.

On Thursday, 46 counties failed to meet the cases per 100,000 threshold, 19 failed to meet the test positivity threshold and 10 failed to meet the ICU availability threshold.

This watchlist determines which types of businesses can be open and whether places of worship can hold in-person services amid the pandemic shutdown. A county must also be off the list for at least two weeks before permitting K-12 schools to reopen for in-person instruction without a waiver.

This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Updated: How close is your California county to getting off – or on – the COVID watchlist?."