Cases: New viral strain back East could be a threat here: Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is more contagious and more resistant to immunity.
By Corinne Purtill for the LA Times. You may have come home with it after a recent trip to New England. Or you may have gotten it from that friend or family member who flew in from New York over the holidays.
The newest Omicron subvariant of concern is XBB.1.5, and it has arrived in Southern California. This version of the coronavirus is more contagious and more resistant to existing immunity than any of it predecessors.
Along with a related subvariant called XBB.1, XBB.1.5 is a combination of two versions of the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron. Both parents are particularly good at binding to the ACE2 receptor — the part of the cell the virus’ spike protein attacks to initiate an infection — and their descendants seem to have inherited that talent.
In the final week of 2022, about 40.5% of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus specimens circulating in the U.S. were of the XBB.1.5 variety, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s especially prevalent in the Northeast, where it first surfaced in early November and now accounts for more than 72% of cases.
XBB.1.5 has so far made less of an impact in the region that includes California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii and the Pacific islands, where its coronavirus market share is 9.2%, according to the CDC. (It’s even less prevalent in mountain and Midwestern states from Utah to Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota.)
In Los Angeles County, as in most of the country, the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 versions of Omicron still dominate, said Dr. Paul Simon , chief science officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Two weeks ago, XBB.1.5 accounted for about 5% of coronaviruses in the county, Simon said. But the county’s data lag real life by about two weeks, he said, and he expects to see a jump in XBB.1.5’s prevalence — and in the total number of coronavirus infections — in the last numbers of 2022.
And when it comes to survival of the fittest, XBB.1.5 has several things going for it. It’s the most infectious subvariant to date. It dodges the immunity conveyed by a vaccine, booster shot or previous infection more effectively than other subvariants . And as was the case with the Delta and original Omicron variants, it emerged in late fall — just in time to proliferate during the frequent indoor gatherings of the holiday season.
XBB.1.5 isn’t just making its mark in the United States. It’s rapidly displacing other Omicron subvariants globally, the World Health Organization confirmed Wednesday.
Early data suggest XBB.1.5 and XBB.1 don’t appear to cause more serious disease than previous forms of the virus. There is also no indication that they respond differently than other subvariants to the drug Paxlovid , which reduces viral load when taken in the earliest days of the disease, Cannon said. (Like all the other subvariants currently in circulation, it does not respond to treatment with monoclonal antibodies.)
XBB.1.5 a worry among health officials-This may be the most infectious Omicron subvariant yet. Here’s what experts say. By Luke Money and Rong-Gong Lin II for the LA Times.
The latest Omicron subvariant — perhaps the most infectious yet — has gained a foothold in California, a potentially problematic development given the possibility of a post-holiday spike.
However, it’s unclear whether the circulation of this latest strain, XBB.1.5, will alter the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A slew of alphanumerically designated coronavirus subvariants, each more easily spread than the last, surfaced last year. Those emergent strains, while disruptive, did not come close to spawning the same sort of devastation seen in earlier waves.
But much remains unknown about how — or if — XBB.1.5 may affect disease severity or whether generally waning immunity from vaccines or a previous brush with the coronavirus will leave the population more exposed to infection.
XBB.1.5 “is the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19. “We are concerned about its growth advantage, in particular in some countries in Europe and in North America — particularly the Northeast part of the United States, where XBB.1.5 has rapidly replaced other circulating variants,” she said during a news conference last week.
In the Northeast, where the subvariant is the dominant circulating strain of the coronavirus, COVID-19-positive hospital admissions have risen in recent weeks and now surpass levels from last summer’s wave, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But given the subvariant’s growth advantage, officials say, the trend warrants a close examination. “We can’t attribute the increase in hospitalizations to XBB.1.5 yet, but we are working with U.S. CDC colleagues closely, and we have asked them for a detailed risk assessment of XBB.1.5 as well — just as we would with any country and any subvariants that are circulating,” Van Kerkhove said. “We need to go deeper and look at the reasons for the increases in hospitalization and determine what is happening.”
Despite its growth elsewhere, XBB.1.5 is nowhere close to dominant in California. The state Department of Public Health estimates it accounts for about 7.8% of cases — the fourth-most-common subvariant circulating in the Golden State. However, the share of cases attributed to it has seemingly risen in recent weeks. In the region that includes California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii and the Pacific island territories, an estimated 7.6% of coronavirus cases over the last week were thought to be XBB.1.5, up from 2.4% in the week leading up to Christmas, CDC data show.
XBB.1.5 is a descendant of XBB, which is a recombinant of descendants of the Omicron subvariant BA.2.
In Los Angeles County, coronavirus cases remain high but have been declining since early December after a Thanksgiving-fueled wave. But officials have warned about the possibility of a second peak stemming from winter holiday gatherings and travel.
The L.A. County Department of Public Health is urging people returning to work or school from winter break to mask up in indoor public settings for at least 10 days. That span is the rough incubation period for the coronavirus — the time between when someone is exposed and when they might be contagious, even if they don’t develop symptoms. Doing so could blunt the severity of a wave this month, officials said.
For the seven-day period that ended Tuesday, L.A. County recorded 2,058 cases a day. Per capita, that’s 143 cases a week for every 100,000 residents. A rate of 100 or more is considered high.
The latest case rate represents a 12% decrease from the prior week. Hospitalizations statewide have stabilized after an autumn rise. As of Monday, 4,159 coronavirus-positive patients were hospitalized in California, a 6% decrease from two weeks ago. That figure includes those hospitalized with COVID-19 and a larger segment of patients who test positive after seeking care for other reasons. Officials this season also haven’t had to deal with the late emergence of a dramatically different variant, as they did with the initial version of Omicron in the autumn of 2021, which rapidly spread over the Thanksgiving and winter holidays.
The Economy: US inflation fell in December to its lowest level in more than a year, in a further sign that price pressures have peaked.
Employers added 223,000 jobs-Growth in December offers evidence U.S. economy is sunny, but cloudy forecast awaits.
FOR NOW at least, the U.S. job market is showing surprising resilience in the face of higher interest rates across the economy.
U.S. employers added a solid 223,000 jobs in December, offering evidence that the economy remains healthy but portending possible further aggressive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve to slow growth and cool inflation.
The December job growth, though a decent gain, amounted to the lowest monthly increase in two years. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, matching a 53-year low , the Labor Department said Friday.
The monthly employment report offered other signs that the job market has begun to cool. Last month’s gains were fewer than half the 537,000 jobs that were added in July. And average hourly wage growth slowed sharply: It was up 4.6% in December from 12 months earlier, compared with a 4.8% year-over-year increase in November and a recent peak of 5.6% in March.
Slower paycheck growth will be a relief for Fed officials, who regard wage growth as a driver of inflation.
Last month’s job growth capped a second consecutive year of robust hiring during which the U.S. regained all 22 million jobs it lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet the rapid hiring and the hefty pay raises that accompanied it probably contributed to a spike in prices that catapulted inflation to its highest level in 40 years.
The picture for 2023 is much cloudier. Many economists foresee a recession in the second half of the year, a consequence of the Fed’s succession of sharp rate hikes. The central bank’s officials have projected that those increases will cause the unemployment rate to reach 4.6% by year’s end.
Though the Fed’s higher rates have begun to cool inflation from its summertime peak , they have also made mortgages, car loans and other consumer and business borrowing more expensive.
For now at least, the job market is showing surprising resilience in the face of higher interest rates across the economy. Employers added 4.6 million jobs in 2022, on top of 6.7 million in 2021. All that hiring was part of a powerful rebound from the pandemic recession of 2020.
In June, year-over-year inflation reached 9.1%, the highest level in 40 years, before slowing to 7.1% in November. Last year, in an aggressive drive to reduce inflation back toward its 2% goal, the Fed raised its benchmark rate seven times.
Fed Chairman Jerome H. Powell has emphasized in recent remarks that consistently strong job growth, which can force employers to raise pay to find and keep workers, can perpetuate inflation: Companies often raise prices to pass on their higher labor costs to customers. And higher pay typically fuels more consumer spending, which can keep inflation elevated.
For that reason, Powell and other Fed officials have signaled their belief that, to get inflation under control, unemployment will have to rise from its current low level.
Fed officials have projected that they will raise their benchmark short-term rate to about 5.1% this year, the highest level in more than 15 years. If hiring and inflation remain strong, the Fed’s rate might have to move even higher.
Technology companies have been laying off workers for months, with some, including Amazon, saying that they had hired too many people during the pandemic. Amazon has boosted its layoffs to 18,000 from an earlier announcement of 10,000. Cloud software provider Salesforce says it will cut 10% of its workers. And Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, says it will shed 11,000 jobs.
Smaller tech companies are also being hit. Stitch Fix, the fast fashion provider, said Thursday that it’s cutting 20% of its salaried workers. DoorDash has said it will eliminate 1,250 jobs.
Yet outside of high tech, smaller companies, in particular, are still hiring. According to payroll processor ADP, companies with more than 500 employees cut jobs in December, while businesses below that threshold added many more workers. And an analysis by investment bank Jefferies showed that small companies were posting a historically high proportion of job openings.
The Fed is concerned about the fast pace of wage growth , which it sees as a reason why inflation is likely to remain high. Average hourly pay is rising at about a 5% pace, one of its highest levels in decades.
Consumers barely increased their spending in November, held down by modest holiday shopping. And manufacturing activity contracted in December for a second straight month, with new orders and production both shrinking.
And the housing market, an important economic bellwether, has taken a severe hit from the Fed’s rate increases, which have more than doubled mortgage rates in the last year. Home sales have plummeted for the last 10 months.