COVID 19 Update for August 15, 2022-Cases, the Economy and More

CDC Guidelines: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its Covid-19 community and school guidance on Thursday, loosening several key recommendations.

People who are exposed to the virus no longer need to quarantine at home, regardless of their vaccination status, although they should wear a mask for 10 days and get tested for the virus on day 5, according to the new guidelines. Routine surveillance testing of people without symptoms is no longer recommended in most settings.

People who test positive for the virus should still isolate at home for at least five days, and the guidelines around masking — which recommend that people wear masks indoors in places where community Covid-19 levels are high — have not changed. The changes signal a new phase of the pandemic, officials and experts said.

The new guidelines are geared toward protecting people from severe illness, Dr. Massetti added. They emphasize the importance of vaccination and other measures, including antiviral treatments and ventilation.

Cases: L.A. County exits high COVID level-The drop reflects promising trends that also made a mask mandate unnecessary.
By Luke Money and Rong-Gong Lin II for the LA Times:  Los Angeles County officially moved out of the high COVID-19 community level Thursday as one top state health official expressed hope that California is at the end of the pandemic’s latest wave.

Officials continue to urge caution, noting that coronavirus case rates remain high and still strongly recommend universal masking in indoor public spaces as schools resume classes.

Still, L.A. County’s move from the high to medium level, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, underscores the recent promising trends in the nation’s most populous county — which prompted officials to drop plans for a renewed mask mandate late last month .

A primary prong of that is vaccination. Focus is now turning to the prospect of an Omicron-specific booster that may be authorized in late September and available for administration in October, ahead of a potential fall-and-winter wave. It’s unclear, however, what age groups would be eligible for that additional dose.

For the seven-day period that ended Thursday, L.A. County has reported an average of about 3,800 new coronavirus cases per day — down 23% from the prior week, according to a Times analysis of county data.

On a per-capita basis, that’s 263 cases a week per every 100,000 residents. The summer’s peak rate was 476, logged between July 12 and July 18. A case rate of 100 or more is considered a high rate of transmission.

The number of coronavirus-positive individuals hospitalized countywide also has started to fall significantly. As of Wednesday, 1,098 such individuals were in L.A. County’s hospitals — down 17% from this wave’s July 20 peak.

The number of coronavirus-positive intensive care unit patients also has begun to fall. There were 125 as of Wednesday, down 15% from the summer’s July 27 peak.

Weekly COVID-19 deaths may also be starting to flatten or drop. L.A. County reported 96 COVID-19 deaths for the week that ended Thursday, down from a summer peak of 122 for the weekly period that ended Saturday.

To move from the high to medium COVID-19 community level, L.A. County had to record fewer than 10 new weekly coronavirus-positive hospital admissions per every 100,000 residents. The county came oh-so-close last week, recording a rate of 10.1, according to the CDC. The most recent assessment released Thursday had a similarly razor-thin margin but in the other direction, with the CDC pegging the county’s rate at 9.9.

Some officials and experts have predicted a potential rebound in coronavirus transmission as children and staff return for the new school year.

The overall number of Californians living in counties with a high COVID-19 community level also dramatically fell Thursday. There were only 37% of California residents in counties at that level, a substantial drop from the prior week’s proportion of 74%. There were 21 California counties in the high COVID-19 community level, down from 28 the prior week.

\Nine counties exited the high level this week: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Sonoma, Imperial, Sutter, Lake, Calaveras and Modoc. Two entered the high level: Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.

In Southern California, Orange and Ventura counties remain in the high level; while Riverside and San Bernardino counties remain in medium. Some of the most populous counties in Northern California and the Central Valley, however, remained in the high COVID-19 community level, including Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, San Mateo, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Solano and Monterey.

The trends in L.A. County largely mirror those statewide. Over the weeklong period ending Monday, California reported an average of 12,750 new coronavirus cases per day — a decrease of 26% from the prior week, according to state data compiled by The Times. On a per capita basis, California is recording 228 cases a week for every 100,000 residents.

Hospitalizations of coronavirus-positive patients across California are also down markedly, from more than 4,800 in late July to 4,030 as of Wednesday; coronavirus-positive ICU patients are down from a summer peak of 571 to 484.

With the worst of the wave now seemingly in the rearview mirror, it’s becoming increasingly clear the major uptick in transmission — fueled by subvariants in the super-contagious Omicron family — did not wreak the same sort of havoc on hospitals as earlier surges.

Though new infections rose to among the highest of the pandemic, as some experts suggested based on wastewater data, the number of coronavirus-positive hospital patients remained comparatively low.

Unlike earlier surges, a significant amount of those patients this time around — including 57% in L.A. County — were not hospitalized for COVID-19 illness but happened to incidentally test positive after seeking care for some other reason.

Experts and officials largely credit the wider disconnect between case counts and hospitalizations with increased vaccination and COVID-19 treatments. Changes in the coronavirus itself also may have played a role, as there are some indications that Omicron and its subvariants cause milder symptoms for many than preceding variants.

Promisingly, the variant outlook remains relatively stable. The dominant Omicron subvariant, BA.5, now accounts for an estimated 87% of coronavirus cases nationwide for the week that ended Saturday, a slight increase from the prior week’s estimate of 85%.

With the latest wave continuing to recede in California and across the country, the CDC on Thursday released new, loosened guidelines regarding what unvaccinated people should do if they’re exposed to a coronavirus-infected person.

The CDC’s action essentially brought federal guidance — which, until Thursday, had been more restrictive than California’s and called for those people to quarantine as they waited to see if they would test positive or develop symptoms — to a roughly similar level as that in place for the state and Los Angeles County.

California recommends that everyone exposed to someone with a coronavirus infection need only mask up for 10 days following exposure, and test three to five days after their last exposure. If symptoms develop or a test result is positive, they need to isolate.

Californians who develop COVID-19 illness or test positive should stay home for at least five days after the onset of symptoms or a positive test result. They can exit isolation as early as Day 6 if they get a rapid negative test result on Day 5 or later, but should wear a mask around other people until the end of Day 10. They generally can exit isolation on Day 11 without needing a negative test result, unless a fever remains or symptoms are not resolving.

California’s weekly COVID-19 death tally is still climbing, and rose to 304 for the week that ended Monday, the highest tally this summer.
Still, the latest figure is far less than previous waves. The summer of 2020 peaked at 1,024 weekly deaths, and the summer of 2021 with 945 weekly deaths.

During the first pandemic winter, there were 3,815 deaths during the worst week; the worst weekly death tally last winter was 1,827.

California has reported more than 93,000 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began. Nearly 29,000 deaths have been reported in the last 12 months. The U.S. has reported more than 1 million COVID-19 deaths, with nearly 400,000 in the last year. As in California, national weekly deaths this summer are down from last summer.

Vaccines: Britain on Monday became the first country to authorize a coronavirus vaccine that targets two variants, the original virus and Omicron, the variant that became dominant over the winter.

The story of the pandemic is shifting, again. Even as more contagious variants circulate, the United States, and much of the world, is trying more than ever to accept that the virus is “here to stay,” as the C.D.C. described it this week.

The aftereffects of the coronavirus on the economy, education and work are also coming into sharper relief, and scientists are making progress in better understanding Covid and its effects on our bodies.

At the same time, new threats to our health are emerging: The global monkeypox outbreak is rapidly expanding, and polio has been found in wastewater in New York City and London.

The Economy: The US consumer price index rose by 8.5 per cent year-on-year in July, a slower annual increase compared to June, as inflationary pressures eased on the back of lower petrol prices.

Inflation slowed in July — has it finally peaked? (From the LA Times): Gradual relief is likely, experts say. Gas costs less but prices of some essentials are soaring. By Don Lee

After months of steadily climbing to a 40-year high, the pace of inflation slowed notably in July as gas prices fell sharply and Americans got relief on the cost of clothing, used cars and some other necessities.

The price index for all consumer goods and services was unchanged over the month. And the annual rate of inflation in July edged down to 8.5% from 9.1% in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a report issued Wednesday.

The June inflation figure, the highest since November 1981, is now looking like it may have been the peak of the price surge that began in spring 2021. Stocks closed sharply higher as investors cheered the better-than-expected news, with the Dow Jones industrial average jumping 535 points and the Nasdaq composite index surging back into bull market territory.

If inflation continues a slow but steady decline — which most economists now believe is likely — it will be especially welcomed by middle-class and lower-income households that must spend much of what they earn on such staples as apparel and fuel. Food inflation, however, did not let up in July, with prices for bread and eggs up sharply.

A slowdown in inflation could not be more welcome to the Biden administration and other Democrats haunted by fears that voter fury over surges in the cost of living would translate into disaster at the polls.

Those political fears were all the greater because inflation not only was negating recent wage gains but had ambushed Americans lulled by decades of near-stagnant prices for most goods and services.

That period of price stability was highly unusual in the long sweep of U.S. economic history, but it lasted so long that many Americans came to take it for granted.

The sudden reemergence of inflation largely eclipsed the positive news about the economy over the last year, including the rapid and robust recovery from the pandemic and a burst of wage gains after years of income stagnation for all but the most highly paid workers.

Unhappiness over inflation has been widely seen as one of the primary reasons for President Biden’s low approval ratings.

The July inflation report comes on the heels of other recent positive developments that include the retreat in gas prices, resilient job growth and a rebound in stock markets.

Democrats in recent weeks have also scored some legislative victories, including expected passage later this week of a major bill to combat climate change and control drug prices, among other things.

Whether this will make a difference in the midterm election remains to be seen, but people’s perceptions of the economy are often seen through the lens of their partisan leanings, and, according to political scientists, tend to be baked into their voting decisions by summer’s end.

No matter how one may view the U.S. economy, there’s no question that inflation is the biggest economic challenge right now for policymakers, business leaders and consumers.

And Wednesday’s report, encouraging as it was, showed that prices for some everyday essentials are still rising at an uncomfortably high rate.

The cost of shelter, including rent, rose 0.5% in July from June and was up 5.7% over the last 12 months. The price of milk held largely steady over the month but was almost 16% higher in July than a year earlier. The war in Ukraine continues to put pressure on global grain supplies and prices, and an outbreak of avian flu has hit poultry products and eggs.

Besides fuel costs, prices last month dropped for apparel, footwear, used vehicles, airline fares and appliances.

One month’s numbers aren’t likely to change the Federal Reserve’s plan to keep hiking interest rates, especially in view of the still-hot labor market.

Moody’s Analytics, a research and forecasting firm, projects the rate of inflation will recede to 6.5% at the end of the year.

That’s a big decline statistically, but inflation is not expected to return to near the Fed’s 2% target until well into 2024. And projections are based on benign outcomes involving the path of the pandemic, the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Fed’s calibration of monetary policy, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s.

The Fed has raised its benchmark short-term rate four times this year, the last two by a supersized 0.75 of a percentage point each. Another similarly large rate hike could come in September.

One of the Fed’s chief goals in raising rates is to cool the labor market and prevent a wage spiral from taking effect and reigniting inflation pressures.
Although the unemployment rate last month returned to the pre-pandemic, 50-year low of 3.5%, statistics suggest that average wage growth may also have peaked at around 5%.

There are indications that in tech and interest-sensitive sectors such as finance and housing, more businesses are laying off employees. And workers appear to be more reluctant to hop jobs in search of better pay and benefits.

Those same concerns are expected to prompt households to pull back on spending, reducing demand that had surged in the last year as consumers, flush with cash from government stimulus checks and booming asset prices, were eager to remake their kitchens or buy entertainment systems or in-home gym equipment.

That had helped gum up supply chains, but some of the major logistics problems have eased recently. Cargo ship backlogs in Southern California, for example, have declined for six straight months, and pressures are ebbing at other modes of transportation as well, Oxford Economics said in a research report.

At the same time, commodity prices fell 8% on average in July, Oxford Economics said, although any easing of inflation at the producer level is far from widespread or even.

More consumer goods producers and retailers, including Walmart, already have started to cut prices or at least hold down increases in an effort to move mounting inventories.

For consumers, the most noticeable — and favorable — development on inflation over the last month is what they’re paying at the filling stations.

Gas prices in the United States fell below $4 a gallon on Thursday, retreating to their lowest level since March, a sign of relief for Americans struggling with historically high inflation and a political boost for President Biden, who has been under pressure to do more to bring down prices.

The national average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline now stands at $3.99, according to AAA. That’s still higher than it was a year ago but well below a peak of nearly $5.02 in mid-June. The average price has fallen for 58 consecutive days.

In California, for example, regulations to limit pollution make driving more expensive, with the average price of gas $5.38 a gallon in the state and some counties recording averages well over $6. In Georgia, which has lower gas taxes and is close to refineries, the average price is about $3.55 a gallon.