SAN ANTONIO — About 264 San Antonio residents tested positive for the coronavirus, on average, each day over the last week. That rolling daily average has not been as high since late February.
Metro Health, meanwhile, reported 402 new coronavirus cases Wednesday—the highest 24-hour count since Feb. 27.
"It's hard to say this is a mini-spike," Metro Health Chief Epidemiologist Rita Espinoza said. "That's one of the reasons we look at the seven-day average. We still have the positivity rate from this weekend that was the lowest it's been in a long time."
Though the public health authority still deems the overall risk for a breakout in San Antonio to be low, it says the two-week case count is at a critical level.
Metro Health does not report the percentage of COVID-19 tests which come back positive each day, instead accumulating results and reporting a weekly percent positivity. Doctors will not know if the bump in new cases this week is problematic until Metro Health updates the city's positivity rate Monday.
"Part of it may be some catch-up on data reported, versus actually a lot of new cases," Espinoza said. "It will take us a little while to capture all the data and find out why we saw that little blip in cases."
Espinoza says the bump in cases is not a result of Easter gatherings, which began impacting daily case counts two weeks ago. The holiday had a minimal effect on community spread, data indicates.
People are checking into San Antonio hospitals for COVID-19 treatment at about the same pace they were two weeks ago, a sign conditions are holding steady.
Still, Metro Health says the city's health care system is slightly stressed.
"We don't want to let our guard down," Espinoza said, noting that there are more vaccines available now than ever. "We don't want to see another surge in hospitalizations."