COVID-19 Update for December 19, 2022-Cases Rising, Falling, Rising, Falling...the Economy and More

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Masking: Pasadena Public Health Department health officer orders were escalated Thursday to “strongly recommend” masking for everyone ages 2 years and older, regardless of vaccination status, in indoor public spaces, indoor workplaces, and on public transit. Indoor masking continues to be required in all healthcare settings.

In addition to escalating the indoor masking recommendation, the revised health officer orders establish threshold criteria that would lead to mandatory masking in Pasadena.

A City statement on Friday said local hospitals and healthcare facilities are significantly strained. “Managing high levels of COVID-19 cases is an ongoing challenge for the healthcare system and limits resources available for helping those in need of treatment,” according to the statement.

The revised order refers to Los Angeles County’s “High Transmission” level as being an influencing factor.

“In Los Angeles County where a large proportion of the people who work, visit, or patronize businesses in Pasadena reside, the rate of COVID-19 cases has remained in the “High Transmission” level as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), contributing to risk of transmission in this City,” the health order says.

Pasadena Public Health Dept. statistics show the 7-day average of COVID-19 cases fell as of Thursday to 31.7 new daily cases, down from a 7-day average of 43.6 new daily new cases on Dec. 1. However, December as a whole has seen an increase in COVID cases in Pasadena.

As of Dec. 12, Huntington Hospital reported 39 COVID-infected patients, of whom 64% were vaccinated. The hospital reported 6 in intensive care, of whom 67% were unvaccinated.

The updated health orders establish threshold metrics, including COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and staffed inpatient hospital beds, to determine when mandatory masking indoors will be required.

The City said the Pasadena Public Health Department urges everyone to take precautions to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases including:

• Wearing a well-fitting respirator or mask (e.g., N95, KN95, KF94)
• Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccination, including all primary series doses and boosters, and getting a flu vaccine
• Staying home when sick and following recommended practices if exposed to COVID-19, including seeking treatment
• Testing if you are sick or have been exposed to someone with COVID-19
• Washing hands regularly.

 

Cases: L.A. County sees declining COVID rates-Respiratory illnesses, including flu, in kids and adults remain a strain on hospitals. By Luke Money, Rong-Gong Lin II and Emily Alpert Reyes for the LA Times.

The number of newly reported COVID-19 cases has ticked down in Los Angeles County, a reprieve following weeks of increases.
Whatever the wider prognosis for the winter , this dip will almost surely delay the return of a public indoor mask mandate in the nation’s most populous county.

For the week to Tuesday, L.A. County’s case rate was 3,148 a day, down 18% from last week. On a per capita basis, that’s 218 cases a week for every 100,000 residents. A rate of 100 or more is considered high.

Many experts caution that official case figures, while a useful metric, are likely a significant undercount due to the proliferation of at-home tests, which are not reliably reported to public health agencies.

The drop in case numbers is more meaningful when accompanied by a slowdown of coronavirus-positive hospitalizations. For the week to Monday, there were 1,359 new coronavirus-positive hospital admissions across L.A. County, down 9% from a seasonal peak of 1,481 for the week to Dec. 2.

It’s not a given that the declines will continue. During the second Omicron wave last spring and summer, there were several brief downturns in the case rate and subsequent increases before the peak in late July.

With holiday travel and festivities still on tap , conditions could be ripe for an uptick in transmission.

Though it’s not required, L.A. County strongly recommends masking in indoor public settings, as do officials with the California Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

L.A. County is the only part of California that has publicly committed to instituting a public indoor mask mandate should pandemic conditions worsen to the point that COVID-19 is exerting sustained pressure on hospitals.

Specifically, the weekly rate of new coronavirus-positive hospital admissions would have to be at least 10 per 100,000 residents, and at least 10% of staffed inpatient hospital beds would need to filled with such patients for two consecutive weeks. The criteria were determined by the county Public Health Department based on guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

L.A. County has already hit the first threshold and before the recent stabilization appeared on track to reach the second in late December. But the latest numbers extend that timeline, and officials last week expressed cautious optimism that a masking order can be avoided.

Even with the downturn, transmission remains high. L.A. County’s weekly case rate last week reached a seasonal high of 272 for every 100,000 residents. Even at a lower rate — around 260 — a gathering of 200 people would have an 80%-90% chance of including at least one infected person. That’s why it remains important to take precautions, experts say.

Staying home when sick, taking rapid tests before attending large events and restricting gatherings to outdoors can help.

Additionally, it’s important to stay up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations, including the updated bivalent booster , experts say.

Because of the prior uptick in cases and hospitalizations in L.A. County, COVID-19 deaths are increasing. The county reported 103 deaths for the week that ended Tuesday, up 34% from the prior week and the first time the rate has exceeded 100 since the summer.

The summer peak was 122 deaths, for the week that ended Aug. 6.

In addition to COVID-19, L.A. County is grappling with high levels of influenza.

The emergency room at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where the flu positivity rate is 18%, remains so stressed that it cannot always accommodate transfers from other facilities.The cumulative flu hospitalization rate is higher for this time of the season than it has been for the last dozen years, according to the CDC.

Some California hospitals have had to set up tents outdoors to handle the increased demand, including Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco and facilities in San Diego County. Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center recently had a record high number of patients at its emergency department in a single day.

Children’s hospitals in Orange County have been so stressed with viral illnesses that the health officer has declared a health emergency. Officials say the numbers of patients at emergency departments are at unprecedented levels, forcing playrooms to be converted into care areas.

Dr. Nancy Gin, regional medical director of quality and clinical analysis at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said Friday that cases of respiratory syncytial virus among young children seem to have crested in the previous weeks.

However, she said, “what we’re seeing is now people are having co-infections with flu and COVID” or other viral combinations.

Flu and RSV this year descended much earlier than usual, so “even without having COVID numbers shooting out the roof, as we did last year with Omicron, we are experiencing a constellation of illness for the community,” Gin said. “And that’s what’s different.”

Bailey of Providence said one wrinkle is that the flu treatment Tamiflu is in limited supply.
 

Vaccines: From the New York Times: Updated booster shots have bolstered Americans’ defenses against serious Covid, reducing the risk of hospitalization by roughly 50 percent compared with certain groups inoculated with the original vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in a pair of studies published on Friday.

The research represents the agency’s first look at how the reformulated boosters, tailored to protect against recent Omicron variants, are performing in the prevention of severe consequences of infection with the virus, including emergency department visits and hospitalizations.

Federal health officials are urging Americans to get the updated booster shots, hoping to revive a lagging vaccination campaign. So far, though, fewer than a fifth of American adults and only a third of people ages 65 and older have received updated shots, reflecting a retreat in many parts of the country from the more aggressive vaccination drives earlier in the pandemic.

New virus variants that are better able to dodge the immune system have gained traction, and Covid cases and hospitalizations have climbed in recent weeks. About 375 Americans are dying each day on average, an increase of 50 percent over the past two weeks. Older people have been hit especially hard.

The virus has exacerbated the difficulties facing a health care system already under strain from resurgences of the flu and respiratory syncytial virus after two years of reductions in those infections.

The Economy: From the Pasadena Star-News and Jonathan Lansner: Southern California’s bosses added 55,600 workers in November — slightly below the month’s average hiring pace.

State job figures released Friday, Dec. 16, found 8.05 million at work in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties in November, up 341,300 in 12 months. November employment was 92,600 above pre-pandemic November 2019.

November’s hiring pace was faster than the 28,442 workers added monthly on average in the past year. The month is typically a busy one for hires as bosses staff up for holiday shopping and year-end events. Between 2015 and 2019, the average November added 64,060 jobs in the region.

Southern California retailers added 15,900 jobs in November. Transportation/warehouses grew staffs by 9,400 and restaurants had 1,400 more workers.

The below-par hiring is more likely due to a shortage of job candidates rather than the Federal Reserve’s attempt to cool an overheated economy with higher interest rates. However, the more rate-sensitive industries including construction, real estate and finance dropped 3,700 positions last month across the region.

One way to see the supply of workers is to gauge the tally of the jobless plus the employed. That local workforce of 8.74 million for November was down 14,600 in a year and off 234,800 in three years. That 3% shrinkage is a reason bosses are struggling to fill open positions.

Southern California joblessness did tick up to 4.1% in November compared with 4% in October. But it’s down from 5.6% a year earlier. November’s 360,500 cohort counted as “out of work” was up 7% in three years — still short of full recovery.

Here’s how the job market was growing across the region’s key metropolitan areas …

• Los Angeles County: 4.64 million workers after adding 37,200 in a month and growing by 193,800 in a year. Unemployment: 4.5% – same as a month earlier – 5.6% a year ago and 4.1% three years ago.
• Orange County: 1.7 million workers after adding 5,600 in a month and growing by 73,100 in a year. Unemployment: 3% vs. 2.8% a month earlier; 3.7% a year ago; 2.7% three years ago.
• Inland Empire: 1.7 million workers after adding 12,800 in a month and growing by 74,400 in a year. Unemployment: 4.2% vs. 4% a month earlier; 5% a year ago; 3.8% three years ago.

 

From the New York Times: Retail sales fell in November, with spending on even traditionally popular gift categories like clothing and sporting goods declining, a sign that high prices for necessities like food are affecting how people approach the holiday shopping season.

U.S. retail sales fell 0.6 percent in November from October, the Department of Commerce said on Thursday. The figure does not account for price changes, and inflation did ease slightly during the month.

Spending increased in some areas, including at grocery stores, health and personal care stores and restaurants and bars. But categories like motor vehicles, furniture, consumer electronics, clothing and sporting goods all declined. Gas prices also fell during the month, meaning consumers spent less money filling up their cars.

Inflation in November slowed to 7.1 percent through the year, down from 7.7 percent in October. Some analysts pointed out that lower prices affected the retail sales figure. “Less inflation is driving some of that decline from October to November, which wouldn’t be a bad thing,” David Silverman, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, said.

In many ways, the report highlights how inflation, even if it has eased, has changed the way consumers are approaching the holiday season. Americans, for example, are whittling down the number of people they are giving gifts to, according to data from KPMG.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark policy rate by half a percentage point and signalled its intention to keep squeezing the US economy next year, as central banks on both sides of the Atlantic enter a new phase in the battle against inflation.

The European Central Bank has slowed the pace of its interest rate increases, in line with rate-setters in the US and UK, raising borrowing costs by half a percentage point and warning of further rate rises to come.

Inflation: Inflation slowed more sharply than expected in November, an encouraging sign for both Federal Reserve officials and consumers that 18 months of rapid and unrelenting price increases are beginning to meaningfully abate.

From the New York Times: At this time last year, economists were predicting that inflation would swiftly fade in 2022 as supply chain issues cleared, consumers shifted from goods to services spending and pandemic relief waned. They are now forecasting the same thing for 2023, citing many of the same reasons.

But as consumers know, predictions of a big inflation moderation this year were wrong. While price increases have started to slow slightly, they are still hovering near four-decade highs. Economists expect fresh data scheduled for release on Tuesday to show that the Consumer Price Index climbed by 7.3 percent in the year through November.

That raises the question: Should America believe this round of inflation optimism?

Economists are slightly less optimistic than last year.

Economists see inflation fading notably in the months ahead, but after a year of foiled expectations, they aren’t penciling in quite as drastic a decline as they were last December.

The Fed officially targets the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, which is related to the consumer price measure. Officials particularly watch a version of the number that illustrates underlying inflation trends by stripping out volatile food and fuel prices — so those forecasts give the best snapshot of what experts are anticipating.

Last year, economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected that so-called core index to fall to 2.5 percent by the end of 2022. Instead, it is running at 5 percent, twice that pace.

This year, forecasters expect inflation to fade to 3 percent by the end of 2023.

The Federal Reserve’s predictions have followed a similar pattern. As of last December, central bankers expected core inflation to end 2022 at 2.7 percent. Their September projections showed price increases easing to 3.1 percent by the end of next year. Fed officials will release a new set of inflation forecasts for 2023 on Wednesday following their December policy meeting.
Supply chains are healing.

One reason to think that the anticipated but elusive inflation slowdown will finally show up in 2023 ties back to supply chains.

At this time last year, economists were hopeful that snarls in global shipping and manufacturing would soon clear; consumer spending would shift away from goods and back to services; and the combination would allow supply and demand to come back into balance, slowing price increases on everything from cars to couches. That has happened, but only gradually. It has also taken longer to translate into lower consumer prices than some economists had expected.

Inflation F.A.Q.

What is inflation? Inflation is a loss of purchasing power over time, meaning your dollar will not go as far tomorrow as it did today. It is typically expressed as the annual change in prices for everyday goods and services such as food, furniture, apparel, transportation and toys.

What causes inflation? It can be the result of rising consumer demand. But inflation can also rise and fall based on developments that have little to do with economic conditions, such as limited oil production and supply chain problems.

Is inflation bad? It depends on the circumstances. Fast price increases spell trouble, but moderate price gains can lead to higher wages and job growth.

How does inflation affect the poor? Inflation can be especially hard to shoulder for poor households because they spend a bigger chunk of their budgets on necessities like food, housing and gas.

Can inflation affect the stock market? Rapid inflation typically spells trouble for stocks. Financial assets in general have historically fared badly during inflation booms, while tangible assets like houses have held their value better.

But the expected shift is finally, if belatedly, showing up. After months of supply chain healing, consumers are now beginning to feel the benefit. Used car prices began declining meaningfully in October inflation data, furniture prices are slumping and apparel is falling in price. Similar cost declines are expected to weigh on inflation next year.

“It is far too early to declare goods inflation vanquished, but if current trends continue, goods prices should begin to exert downward pressure on overall inflation in coming months,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said during a recent speech.
The Fed is working on cooling demand.

Unfortunately, moderation in goods prices alone would probably fail to return America to a normal inflation rate, because price increases for services have been accelerating. That category — which covers everything from meals out to monthly rent — accounted for half of consumer price inflation in October, based on a Bloomberg breakdown, up from less than a third a year earlier.

Many types of service inflation are closely intertwined with what’s happening in the job market. For companies including hair salons, restaurant chains and tax accountants, paying employees is typically a major, if not the biggest, cost of doing business. When workers are scarce and wages are climbing rapidly, businesses are more likely to raise their prices to try to cover heftier labor bills.

That means that today’s very low unemployment and abnormally rapid wage growth could help to keep price increases faster than usual, even though the job market wasn’t a big driver of the initial burst in inflation.

That is where Fed policy could come in. Companies can only charge more if their customers are able — and willing — to pay more. The Fed can stop that chain reaction by lifting interest rates to slow demand.

Policymakers have raised interest rates from near-zero at the start of 2022 to nearly 4 percent, and are expected to make another interest rate increase this week. Those moves have made it more expensive to borrow money to buy a house, finance a big purchase or expand a business.

The knock-on effects are now trickling through the economy: Fewer house sales could eventually mean less hiring in construction and manufacturing, which in turn would mean less spending in the local economies where would-be builders and factory workers live. As the job market slows down and wage growth moderates, demand is expected to weaken for everything from dinners out to air travel.

Understand Inflation and How It Affects You

    Social Security: The cost-of-living adjustment, which helps the benefit keep pace with inflation, will be 8.7 percent next year. Here is what that means.

    Inflation Forecasts: Economists misjudged how much staying power inflation would have. Next year could be better — but there’s ample room for humility.

    Tax Rates: The I.R.S. has made inflation adjustments for 2023, which could push many people into a lower tax bracket and reduce tax bills.

    Your Paycheck: Inflation is taking a bigger and bigger bite out of your wallet. Now, it’s going to affect the size of your paycheck next year.

“Slower wage growth will reduce upward pressure on services inflation,” economists at Goldman Sachs predicted. But the process might take time. They expect the labor market for health care workers in particular to remain hot and put upward pressure on inflation next year, for instance.

Rent growth is moderating.

In one service category, though, a 2023 inflation deceleration is a fairly sure bet: rents.

Rent increases take time to flow into measured inflation because existing tenants do not start paying more until they renew their leases. That means that a 2021 pop in new rents has been slowly working its way into the official price numbers, pushing up inflation throughout 2022.

Market-based rents have begun to cool or even fall in recent months, which suggests that rent growth should also begin to moderate. The uncertainty is when the slowdown will happen — some economists think as early as next spring — and how quickly rents will decelerate.

But big wild cards remain.

The challenge with forecasting inflation is that while it is possible to make guesses about specific categories like rent, many inflation drivers come as a surprise. Forecasters in 2021 could not have guessed that Russia would invade Ukraine in early 2022, sharply pushing up food and fuel prices.

Likewise, it is hard to guess what will happen on the geopolitical stage next year. An escalation of the conflict in Europe could put renewed pressure on gas prices. The return of Chinese consumers after years of rolling lockdowns could lead to more people competing for goods in the global market.

And things could simply take longer than expected to return to normal. That’s partly what happened in 2022. Consumption and the labor market both outstripped expectations, keeping the pressure on prices.

“The economy was more resilient than expected,” said Laura Rosner-Warburton, senior economist at Macro Policy Perspectives. “Supply chain problems lasted a lot longer than expected and have been difficult to forecast on the way up and down.”

How quickly demand will slow is still uncertain. The labor market is expected to cool, but for now it is strong. And many households are still in solid financial shape. They amassed $2.3 trillion in extra savings during the pandemic thanks to months stuck at home and government stimulus, and still had about $1.7 trillion of that by mid-2022, based on Fed research.

Those nest eggs have helped Americans to sustain their spending this year, giving companies the ability to raise prices without scaring away customers — a trend that could continue, at least for a while.

The challenge in forecasting, Mr. Furman said, is that there’s “a powerful desire to tell a happy story.” So far, inflation has been anything but.

Inflation in the UK dipped to 10.7 per cent in November as lower petrol prices helped to ease the rate of price increases from a 41-year high last month.