The day many have dreaded for months has now come to pass. San Diego County fell to the most-restrictive level of the state’s COVID-19 reopening system Tuesday, meaning that restaurants, houses of worship, movie theaters and other organizations must cease or significantly reduce their indoor operations by 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

In the state’s latest tier report, the region received an adjusted case rate of 8.9 per 100,000 residents, once again over the limit of 7. Taken together with last week’s score of 7.4, San Diego has now gone two consecutive weeks with out-of-bounds numbers that force it to fall to the lowest of the four levels included in the coronavirus risk-ranking system