Cases: Consider this California’s first coronavirus surge of the endemic era. Even with the rise in home tests that don’t make it into official statistics, the state is now reporting more confirmed cases per day than it did at the peak of the summer 2020 surge, and it is closing in on summer 2021 surge levels.

But while public health officials and experts are concerned about the increasing transmission levels, they aren’t expecting a crush of COVID-19 to overwhelm hospitals, as past surges did.

A number of factors are at play, experts say. While the variant that’s dominant right now is extremely contagious, it appears to cause less severe disease than previous forms of COVID-19, said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a professor at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, who is an expert in epidemiology and infectious diseases. High rates of immunity from vaccination or past infections also are protecting people who get sick against severe disease and death and medical treatment has improved.

California reported an average of 11,200 cases per day in the week ending May 17 — the most recent week with reliable data, because the numbers are based on what day a person got tested or got sick, not when their results came back, and results take some time.

That’s double the cases from just three weeks prior and more than five times higher than the recent low of about 2,100 cases per day in the week ending March 21.

Cases have risen in every county in California, but the increases have been sharpest in rural northern and central regions, while the Bay Area currently has the highest case rates when adjusted for population.

San Francisco added 378 confirmed cases for every 100,000 residents from May 11 to May 17, according to the latest state data. Del Norte, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma and Marin counties all had more than 300 cases per 100,000 residents as well. Rates were lower in Southern California: 206 in San Diego County, 200 in Los Angeles County, 143 in Orange County, 132 in Riverside County and 105 in San Bernardino County.

California’s case rates may be back in summer surge territory, but its hospitalization numbers, mercifully, are not. On the recent day when California’s daily average of new cases topped 10,000, nearly 1,400 people statewide were hospitalized with COVID-19. At previous times when the case rate has gone above 10,000, many more people have been hospitalized:

  • Almost 6,400 in the summer 2020 surge.
  • Almost 3,700 in the winter 2020 surge.
  • About 4,000 in the summer 2021 surge.
  • About 3,500 during the winter 2022 surge.

 

As of Wednesday, California hospitals were treating 1,967 people with COVID-19; the only times that number was lower were the past two months and about a three month period in 2021.

It’s not all good news; the numbers of people in the hospital and in intensive care units have both doubled since their record low points last month.

Los Angeles County had 429 patients hospitalized, including 55 in the ICU, up from lows of 209 and 19.

Masking: UCLA will reinstate an indoor mask-wearing mandate for all students, staff and visitors at campus facilities starting today. No other colleges appeared to take such a step this week, however, despite spiking coronavirus rates in the region.

Summer Vacation?: A COVID-19 surge is underway that is starting to cause disruptions as the school year wraps up and Americans prepare for summer vacations. Many people, though, have returned to their pre-pandemic routines and plans, which often involve travel. Case counts are as high as they’ve been since mid-February and those figures are likely a major undercount because of unreported positive home test results and asymptomatic infections. Hospitalizations are also up and more than onethird of the U.S. population lives in areas that are considered at high risk by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Northeast has been hit the hardest.

Yet vaccinations have stagnated and elected officials nationwide seem loath to impose new restrictions on a public that’s ready to move on even as the U.S. death toll surpassed 1 million people less than 2 1/2 years into the outbreak.be exposed and infected.”

A major metric for the pandemic — the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. — skyrocketed over the last two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The figure was about 76,000 on May 9 and jumped to nearly 109,000 on Monday. That was the highest it had been since mid-February, when the omicron-fueled surge was winding down.

The Economy: The average price of a gallon of regular-octane gasoline rose to $6 on Tuesday, a first for San Bernardino County. Prices have been steadily rising since late April as the war in Ukraine has intensified and the price of crude oil has risen. A month ago, prices in the county hovered around $5.73 a gallon. Go back a year, and prices were $4.13.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Feb. 24 “sent shock waves through the oil market that have kept oil costs elevated,” said Andrew Gross, an AAA national public relations manager.

The price of a barrel of brent crude was $113.42 Monday and has increased $16.58 since the invasion, up 17.1%. The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in Los Angeles County has increased $1.301 since the invasion, a 27.4% increase. Orange County’s average price has risen $1.293 since the invasion, a 27% increase.

An inflation gauge closely tracked by the Federal Reserve rose 6.3% in April from a year earlier, the first slowdown since November 2020 and a sign that high prices may finally be moderating, at least for now.

The inflation figure the Commerce Department reported Friday was below the four-decade high of 6.6% set in March. While high inflation is still causing hardships for millions of households, any slowing of price increases, if sustained, would provide some modest relief.

The report also showed that consumer spending rose at a healthy 0.9% annual rate from March to April, outpacing the month-to-month inflation rate for a fourth straight time. The ongoing willingness of the nation’s consumers to keep spending freely despite inflated prices is helping sustain the economy. Yet all that spending is helping keep prices high and could make the Federal Reserve’s goal of taming inflation even harder.

Federal Reserve officials agreed when they met earlier this month that they may have to raise interest rates to levels that would weaken the economy as part of their drive to curb inflation, which is near a four-decade high.

At the same time, many of the policymakers also agreed that after a rapid series of rate increases in the coming months, they could “assess the effects” of their rate hikes and, depending on the economy’s health, increase rates at a slower pace.

After their meeting this month, the policymakers raised their benchmark short-term rate by a half-point — double the usual hike. According to minutes from the May 3-4 meeting released Wednesday, most of the officials agreed that half-point hikes also “would likely be appropriate” when they next meet in June and July. Chair Jerome Powell himself had indicated after this month’s meeting that half-point increases would be “on the table” at the next two meetings.

All the officials believed that the Fed should “expeditiously” raise its key rate to a level at which it neither stimulates nor restrains growth, which officials have said is a rate of about 2.4%. Some policymakers have said they will likely reach that point by the end of this year.

The minutes suggest, though, that there may be a sharp debate among policymakers about how quickly to tighten credit after the June and July meetings. The economy has shown more signs of slowing, and stock markets have dropped sharply, since the Fed meeting.