Restaurants Care Resilience Fund: Applications open April 15 - 30, 2022. Restaurants Care is proud to partner once again with SoCalGas, PG&E, SDG&E, and Wells Fargo to offer relief grants and services to restaurants at the heart of our communities. The Restaurants Care Resilience Fund application will be open from April 15-30, 2022, and can be found at www.restaurantscare.org/resilience.
This year, we’re investing in two things that keep a restaurant running, kitchens and crews. Grants will be awarded to independent restaurants for kitchen equipment upgrades or retention bonuses —whichever need is greater.
The Resilience Fund provides cash grants of $3,000 and one year of small business support services to independent restaurants. Grants will be available to all California-based restaurant owners with fewer than three units/concepts and under $3 million in annual revenue (combined for all units). Last year, the Resilience Fund awarded 318 grants to independent restaurant owners.
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KKR Small Business Builders Grant Program for Female Founders offers $10,000 grants to help women sustain their businesses, maintain and create jobs, and spur economic opportunity during COVID-19. Apply now before the Round 7 deadline on April 22, 2022, at 6 p.m. ET. Apply now
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As part of the Year of Small Business, the Hello Alice Small Business Growth Fund is offering small business owners the opportunity to receive a $5,000 grant to help them make their next big move. The deadline for Round 2 is Friday, May 20, 2022, at 6 p.m. ET. Apply now
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Cases: Pasadena reported 20 new cases on Friday, April 15th, and no new fatalities. Even as the infectious BA.2 subvariant of COVID- 19 continues spreading, the number of coronavirus- positive hospital patients in Los Angeles County sank again Friday. According to state figures, there were 228 COVID- 19-positive patients in county hospitals as of Friday, down from 239 a day earlier. Of those patients, 31 were being treated in intensive care, down from 32 on Thursday.
Hospital numbers have remained low in the county despite steadily rising COVID- 19 infection rates. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday the county is averaging more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, up from an average of 878 the previous week. The county reported 1,355 new cases Friday.
The BA.2 subvariant, a more infectious offshoot of the omicron variant that caused a winter surge, is now the dominant strain of the virus in the county, believed to be representing 67% of new infections. While the rising case numbers haven’t yet translated to a spike in hospitalizations and deaths, health officials continued Friday to press for more people to get vaccinated or to receive booster shots — warning that the more the virus spreads, the higher the risk it could mutate into a more dangerous form.
The 1,355 new cases reported Friday gave the county a cumulative total of 2,850,480, although Ferrer on Thursday cited a recent study suggesting actual infection numbers are likely much higher, primarily due to people who don’t get tested or don’t report home-test results to the county.
Another 13 virus-related deaths also were reported Friday, lifting the cumulative death toll to 31,852.
Rising along with daily case numbers is the average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus. That rate had been holding steady below 1%, but it rose to 1.7% on Thursday and hit 2.4% Friday. The rate is still low overall, but roughly triple the rate it was two weeks ago.
2021 was the deadliest year in U.S. history, and new data and research are offering more insights into how it got that bad.
The main reason for the increase in deaths? COVID- 19, said Robert Anderson, who oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work on death statistics.
The agency this month quietly updated its provisional death tally. It showed there were 3.465 million deaths last year, or about 80,000 more than 2020’s record-setting total.
Early last year, some experts were optimistic that 2021 would not be as bad as the first year of the pandemic — partly because effective COVID-19 vaccines had finally become available.
COVID-19 deaths rose in 2021 — to more than 415,000, up from 351,000 the year before — as new coronavirus variants emerged and an unexpectedly large numbers of Americans refused to get vaccinated or were hesitant to wear masks, experts said. The coronavirus is not solely to blame. Preliminary CDC data also shows the crude death rate for cancer rose slightly, and rates continued to increase for diabetes, chronic liver disease and stroke.
Drug overdose deaths also continued to rise. The CDC does not yet have a tally for 2021 overdose deaths, because it can take weeks of lab work and investigation to identify them. But provisional data through October suggests the nation is on track to see at least 105,000 overdose deaths in 2021 — up from 93,000 the year before.
The coronavirus is continuing to stalk the world at an astonishing clip, racing past a grim succession of pandemic milestones in 2022: totals of 300 million known cases around the world by early January, 400 million by early February and, as of Tuesday, half a billion.
There almost certainly have been far more infections than that among the global population of 7.9 billion, with many going undetected or unreported, and the reporting gap may only grow wider as some countries, including the United States, scale back official testing.
Vaccines: A statewide mandate for all school students aged 12 and over to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend classes will be delayed until at least July 2023, state health officials announced Thursday.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the policy in October, he said it would not take effect until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave full authorization to the vaccine for use on children aged 12 and over. So far, however, the shots are being offered to that age group only on an emergency-use basis.
A booster shot of the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech increased the level of neutralizing antibodies against both the original version of the virus and the omicron variant in a small trial of children ages 5-11, the companies announced Thursday. If the companies’ claims of a strong immune response pass muster with federal regulators, the government could broaden eligibility for booster doses to include 28 million more children.
The study by Pfizer and BioNTech, announced in December, included 140 children who received a booster six months after their second shot. The findings were described in a news release. The children showed a sixfold increase in antibody levels against the original version of the virus one month after receiving the booster, compared with one month after receiving a second dose. Laboratory tests of blood samples from a subgroup of 30 children also showed 36 times the level of neutralizing antibodies against the omicron variant compared with levels after only two doses, according to the news release and a Pfizer spokeswoman.
Push to vaccinate children stalling: Despite months of outreach and on-the-ground efforts, the COVID-19 vaccination campaign for young children remains stuck in neutral — prompting experts to say more needs to be done to inform parents about the benefits of inoculation.
In California, just 34% of children ages 5 to 11 have completed their primary vaccination series, compared with 66% of youths ages 12 to 17, according to state health data. By contrast, 78% of younger adults up to age 49 have completed their primary vaccination series, while at least 83% of older adults have done so.
Here are six reasons why parents should get their children vaccinated, according to Dr. Mark Sawyer, a clinical pediatrics professor and pediatric infectious-disease specialist at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego.
- 1. Children’s COVID-19 hospitalization rates are higher than for the flu.
- 2. Thousands of children have become seriously ill with MIS-C.
- 3. COVID-19 is associated with a greater risk of getting diabetes.
- 4. The vaccines work to protect against severe illness.
- 5. Data are mounting on vaccine safety.
- 6. Hospitalization rates have jumped significantly for the youngest children in the Omicron era.
Testing: The US Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization to the first coronavirus test that spots chemical compounds associated with the coronavirus in breath, the agency said Thursday.
The FDA said the InspectIR Covid-19 Breathalyzer, which is about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, can be used in medical offices and mobile testing sites. It can give results in less than three minutes.
The system separates and identifies chemical mixtures to detect five compounds associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
A study of the InspectIR Breathalyzer found it accurately identified more than 91% of positive samples and nearly 100% of negative samples. Similar sensitivity was found in another study.
Protocols: Despite great pressure from airlines, the hospitality industry and Republican lawmakers to lift the rule requiring masks on planes and other public transportation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended the federal transportation mask requirement for two weeks on Wednesday, five days before it was set to expire. The mask mandate now expires May 3, if it is not extended yet again.
Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the new White House Covid response coordinator, said in an interview that the additional time will allow the C.D.C. to assess whether BA.2, a subvariant of the coronavirus, is going to become a “ripple or a wave” in the United States. The C.D.C. will use that information to determine whether the mandate should be extended further, he said. In a statement announcing the extension of the divisive rule, the C.D.C. said BA.2 now makes up more than 85 percent of new U.S. virus cases.
In recent days, new U.S. cases have started ticking up again. As of Tuesday, the nation was reporting more than 31,000 new cases a day on average, 8 percent more than two weeks earlier, according to a New York Times database, though the case counts have not approached the peak seen in the winter Omicron surge. Reported cases may be an undercount of the virus’s true spread to some degree, since access to at-home tests has increased and the results of such tests are often not officially reported.
It’s not yet clear how severe the impact of these cases will be, Dr. Jha said, noting that BA.2 has caused far more hospitalizations and deaths in the United Kingdom than it has in Israel, two countries where it appeared earlier than in the United States and where it spread widely.
The COVID-19 Ongoing Requirements for Employers has been updated by Los Angeles County. As of 4/6/22: updated to align with the revised County Health Officer Order. The revised Order no longer requires Operations of Mega Events to check for proof of vaccination or a recent negative test, but continues to strongly recommend it. This document summarizes ongoing requirements that employers must continue to follow in accordance with state and county rules. Please see the links in the document for more detailed information about the requirements. Please note that where the requirements differ, the more stringent directives apply. Continuing_Safety_Measures.pdf
Other pertinent information and resources can be found on the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health website at http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/
The Health Officer Order for the Control of COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Quarantine Order (translations pending) has been revised as of April 13, 2022 and effective as of 12:01 a.m. on Friday, April 15, 2022. This Order supersedes the March 16, 2022 order. Changes are highlighted in yellow on the document.
This Quarantine Order is revised in response to changes in the April 6, 2022, State Public Health Officer Guidance for Local Jurisdictions on Isolation and Quarantine of the General Public.
- Removes quarantine requirement for asymptomatic exposes person (for the general public).
- Adds work exclusion or restriction in certain specific High-Risk Settings.
- Includes updates definition for close contact.
Requires close contacts who are exempted from quarantine to wear a highly protective mask around others, especially indoors, for a total of 10 days after the last contact with a person infected with COVID-19, and to test to determine infection status.
Changes the definition of a close contact to align with the new CDPH definition of: "someone sharing the same indoor airspace, e.g., home, clinic waiting room, airplane, etc., for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period (for example, three individual 5-minute exposures for a total of 15 minutes) during an infected person's (laboratory-confirmed or clinical diagnosis) infectious period."
The Economy: Long-term U.S. mortgage rates continued to climb this week as the key 30-year loan rate reached 5% for the first time in more than a decade amid persistent high inflation.
The average 5% rate on the 30-year mortgage was up from 4.72% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday. The average rates in recent months have been showing the fastest pace of increases since 1994. By contrast, a year ago the 30-year rate stood at 3.04%.
The average rate on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, popular among those refinancing their homes, jumped to 4.17% from 3.91% last week.
With inflation at a four-decade high, rising mortgage rates, elevated home prices and tight supply of homes available for sale, the goal of homeownership has become the most expensive in a generation, Freddie Mac said.
The coronavirus pandemic and its ripple effects have snarled supply chains around the world, contributing to shipping backlogs, product shortages and the fastest inflation in decades.
But in a report released Thursday, White House economists argue that while the pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in the supply chain, it didn’t create them — and they warned that the problems won’t go away when the pandemic ends.
White House economists analyzed the supply chain as part of the Economic Report of the President. The annual document, which this year runs more than 400 pages, typically offers few new policy proposals, but it outlines the admin-istration’s thinking on key economic issues facing the country, and on how the president hopes to address them.
This year’s report focuses on the role of government in the economy, and calls for the government to do more to combat slowing productivity growth, declining labor force participation, rising inequality and other trends that long predated the pandemic.
The report dedicates one of its seven chapters to supply chains, noting that the once-esoteric subject “entered dinner-table conversations” in 2021. In recent decades, Rouse and the report’s other authors write, U.S. manufacturers have increasingly relied on parts produced in lowcost countries, especially China, a practice known as offshoring. At the same time, companies have adopted justin- time production strategies that minimize the parts and materials they keep in inventory, in an attempt to maximize returns to shareholders.The result, the authors argue, are supply chains that are efficient but brittle — vulnerable to breaking down in the face of a pandemic, a war or a natural disaster.
Southern California’s jobless rate in March fell to 4.4% — a pandemic-era low — despite a slower hiring pace. My trusty spreadsheet, filled with state job figures released Friday, found that combined unemployment in the four counties covered by the Southern California News Group declined from 5% the previous month.
Unemployment in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties was 3.9% in February 2020, the last month before coronavirus chilled the economy. Joblessness peaked at 17.6% in May 2020.
Local employers in the four counties added 31,800 jobs in March to 7.75 million employees, up 0.4% in a month and 6.7% in a year.
In February, the local economy added 99,000 jobs and 489,000 over 12 months. Hiring has averaged a 47,000 monthly pace in the recovery from the pandemic jobs bottom of April 2020 amid lockdowns limiting the virus’ spread.
Despite this noteworthy hiring rebound from lockdowns that once iced the economy, total employment is still 98% of February 2020.
So far, it’s been a split recovery. Employment in eateries, tourism and entertainment is at 869,600 — 91% of pre-pandemic staffing vs. 99% for the rest of the economy. These “fun” businesses — with 11% of local jobs — added 12,700 workers last month or 40% of all hires.
From the Pasadena Star-News and Jonathan Lansner: California’s economic rebound from the pandemic era outpaced all but two states in 2021 when measured by growth in the broadest measurement of business output.
My trusty spreadsheet analyzed state-bystate gross domestic product data — that’s the dollars following through the economy, adjusted for inflation’s impact — from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
California’s economy grew 7.8% in 2021, No. 3 among all states, versus 5.7% growth nationwide. The top state was Tennessee at 8.6%, followed by No. 2 New Hampshire at 8.5%.
Oh, and what about California’s top economic rivals? Florida was up 6.9% (No. 5) and Texas grew 5.6% (No. 19).
Details
The growth rate is impressive considering just how big California’s economy is. The state produced $3.36 trillion of goods and services last year, earning the top spot in the nation’s $23 trillion economy. By the way, California’s output is also bigger than every national economy outside of the U.S., China, Japan and Germany.
And Texas? Its $1.99 trillion output ranks it No. 2 among the states. Florida’s $1.23 trillion is No. 4.
Yes, the sharp rebound came after a pandemic-iced 2020. Yet California’s performance in GDP terms is better than you’d guess, considering all the criticism of the state’s tough business-crimping restrictions designed to tame the spread of the coronavirus.
California’s GDP fell 2.8% in 2020, but that was still the 18th-best result among the states — tying Florida, no less. It topped a 3.4% loss nationwide. Texas fell 2.9%.
So that means California’s business output last year was 104.8% of 2019’s levels — the seventh-best rebound among the states. The nation’s output was at 102%; Texas was 102.5% (No. 19) and Florida was 103.9% (No. 14).
Just so you know, California’s GDP grew 3.6% in 2019, No. 8 among the states — topping the nationwide rate of 2.3%, Texas’ 3.2% (No. 11) and Florida’s 3% (No. 12).
What boosted California’s economy in 2021? The state’s renowned information- processing juggernaut was the key cog among 21 business niches carved out by the GDP math. Information businesses accounted for 23% of the state’s growth, versus 12% for all U.S. growth. The manufacturing of durable goods kept factories humming, the state’s No. 2 boost -15% of California’s 2021 growth, versus a 9% share in the U.S. The work-from-home pivot didn’t cool two typical types of office work — finance was 14% of California growth and professional services took 12%. Both were the same share as the national economy. And No. 5 was accommodations and food services, with 7% of California’s growth. That trailed the industry’s 9% U.S. share, a sign of the lingering impacts of tough business limitations California imposed on “fun” businesses.
Bottom line
GDP is a rather impersonal statistic, and it also reflects one economic oddity of the pandemic era: Those who did well in these stressful years did very well.
So I’d be remiss without mentioning recent job market trends.
California’s total employment grew 3.2% last year, No. 19 among the states. That brought the job count to 95.9% of 2019, the No. 32 pandemic-era performance among the states.
Nationally, jobs grew 3.1% last year for a 96.8% rebound. Florida jobs jumped 4.6% (No. 5) to a 99.4% rebound (No. 9). And Texas’ 3.5% job growth (No. 17) pushed it to 99.2% of pre-pandemic days (No. 10).
But in this wealth versus health debate, don’t overlook the pandemic’s other toll — deaths. California has suffered 226 viruslinked deaths per 100,000 residents in the last two years — the 13th-best performance and below the nation’s 296 rate. Texas had 303, 26th-best, while Florida had 342, for 16th-worst.