Cases: The number of COVID-19-positive patients in Los Angeles County hospitals fell back under 600 on Saturday, bucking a trend from the past several weeks that has moved the region closer to a possible resurrection of indoor mask-wearing mandates.
According to state figures, there were 571 virus-positive patients in county hospitals as of Saturday, down 45 from Friday’s total. The number of those patients being treated in intensive care was 66, up three from a day earlier.
The hospitalization total had dropped as low as 209 in mid-April.
Health officials have noted that many of the COVID-19-positive patients were admitted to hospitals for a reason other than the virus, and many only realized they were infected when they were tested upon admission. But county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer stressed that even though patients may have been admitted for other reasons, the fact they are infected with the virus forces hospitals to take extra precautions to prevent it from spreading, adding to the strain on the health care system overall.
The county and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are keeping close watch on hospital numbers. Los Angeles County is already in the CDC’s “medium” category for virus activity. It will move into the “high” category if its average daily rate of new COVID19-related hospital admissions rises above 10 per 100,000 residents, or if the percentage of staffed hospital beds occupied by COVID-19-positive patients tops 10%.
The figures have both been slowly rising over the past several weeks, with the rate of new admissions reaching 6.4 per 100,000 residents on Thursday, up from 5.2 a week ago. The portion of hospital beds in the county occupied by virus patients was 3.1% as of Thursday, up from 2.7% from a week ago.
If the county is moved into the “high” category, it will reimpose a mandatory indoor mask-wearing mandate.
Health officials already are strongly recommending that people wear masks indoors. Masks are still mandatory in high-risk settings such as health care facilities, aboard transit vehicles and in transit centers, in correctional facilities and at long-term care facilities.
The rise in hospitalizations has followed a sharp increase in the daily number of new COVID-19 infections, driven by highly transmissible variants of the original virus. The most recent variant, BA.2, is now slowly giving way to an offshoot variant dubbed BA.2.12.1, which was detected in more than 40% of recent cases that underwent specialized testing to identify variants.
The rise has become particularly notable at schools and nursing homes, where outbreaks have been rising in recent weeks.
The county on Friday reported another 6,202 COVID-19 cases,raising the cumulative total from throughout the pandemic to 3,025,694. Another eight virus-related fatalities were also announced, raising the overall death toll to 32,201.
The average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was 5% as of Friday. The county health department does not report COVID-19 data on weekends.
If the county is moved into the “high” category, it will reimpose a mandatory indoor mask-wearing mandate.
Health officials are already strongly recommending that people wear masks indoors. Masks are still mandatory in high-risk settings such as healthcare facilities, aboard transit vehicles and in transit centers, in correctional facilities and at long-term care facilities.
The most recent variant, BA.2, is now slowly giving way to an offshoot variant dubbed BA.2.12.1, which was detected in more than 40% of recent cases that underwent specialized testing to identify variants.
The rise has become particularly notable at schools and nursing homes, where outbreaks have been rising in recent weeks.
The county on Friday reported another 6,202 COVID-19 cases, raising the cumulative total from throughout the pandemic to 3,025,694. Another eight virus-related fatalities were also announced, raising the overall death toll to 32,201.
The average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was 5% as of Friday.COVID-19 is making up a growing percentage of the reasons why people in L.A. County are seeking care at emergency rooms. About 6% of ER visits in the last week are related to the coronavirus; a month ago, the rate was 3.8%. L.A. County says there’s a medium level of concern when that percentage is 5% or more, and a high level of concern when it exceeds 10%.
The omicron subvariants known as BA.4 and BA.5 now represent 13% of new coronavirus cases in the United States, up from 7.5% a week ago and 1% in early May, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The spread of the subvariants adds more uncertainty to the trajectory of the pandemic in the United States, where current case counts are likely to be a significant underestimate. But whether it leads to a major new wave of infections, or spikes in hospitalizations and deaths, remains unclear, scientists cautioned.
The new figures, which were released Tuesday, are based on modeling, and the CDC’s estimates have missed the mark before. But the overall trend suggests that BA.4 and BA.5 could outcompete the two other omicron subvariants, BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, which together account for most U.S. cases, said Denis Nash, a public health researcher at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy.
Vaccines: Moderna’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine that combines its original shot with protection against the omicron variant appears to work, the company announced Wednesday.
COVID-19 vaccine makers are studying updated boosters that might be offered in the fall to better protect people against future coronavirus surges.
Moderna’s preliminary study results show people given the combination shot experienced a higher boost in omicron-fighting antibodies than if they just got a fourth dose of the original vaccine.
Travel: The Biden administration is lifting its requirement that international travelers test negative for COVID-19 within a day before boarding a flight to the United States, ending one of the last remaining government mandates designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
A senior administration official said Friday that the mandate will expire early Sunday morning.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that the testing requirement is no longer necessary. The person said the CDC will reevaluate the issue every 90 days.
Airline and tourism groups have been pressing the administration for months to eliminate the testing requirement, saying it discourages people from booking international trips because they could be stranded overseas if they contract the virus on their trip.
The Economy: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged Tuesday that she and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “could have used a better word” than “transitory” when describing the expected run of inflation in the U.S. economy. She added that she was hopeful it would soon be on the decline.
The Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have been increasingly blamed by legislators and the public for allowing inflation to reach record highs, notably an 8.3% leap in consumer prices over the past year.
She told CNN last week that she did not fully understand the impact that unanticipated large shocks and supply bottlenecks would have on the economy.
The hearing was an opportunity for lawmakers to press Yellen on the causes for inflation, when it may decline and the administration’s plans to reduce the pain on Americans.
As for earlier pronouncements by Yellen and Powell that the U.S. inflation problem was transitory, Yellen allowed, “Both of us could have used a better word than transitory. There’s no question that we have huge inflation pressures. Inflation is really our top economic problem at this point.”
Inflation has shown signs of moderating but is likely to remain far above the Fed’s 2% target through the end of this year. The Congressional Budget Office released an economic outlook this month saying high inflation will persist into next year, likely causing the federal government to pay higher interest rates on its debt.
The nonpartisan agency expects the consumer price index to rise 6.1% this year and 3.1% in 2023. This forecast suggests that inflation will slow from current annual levels of 8.3%, yet it would still be dramatically above a long-term baseline of 2.3%.
For large and small nations around the globe, the prospect of averting a recession is fading.
That grim prognosis came in a report Tuesday from the World Bank, which warned that the grinding war in Ukraine, supply chain chokeholds, Covid-related lockdowns in China, and dizzying rises in energy and food prices are exacting a growing toll on economies all along the income ladder. This suite of problems is “hammering growth,” David Malpass, the bank’s president, said in a statement. “For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid.”
World growth is expected to slow to 2.9 percent this year from 5.7 percent in 2021. The outlook, delivered in the bank’s Global Economic Prospects report, is not only darker than one produced six months ago, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also below the 3.6 percent forecast in April by the International Monetary Fund.
Growth is expected to remain muted next year. And for the remainder of this decade, it is forecast to fall below the average achieved in the previous decade.
More Americans applied for jobless aid last week, but the total number of Americans collecting unemployment remains at a five-decade low.
Applications for unemployment benefits rose by 27,000 to 229,000 for the week ending Sunday, the most since mid-January, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Firsttime applications generally track the number of layoffs.
The four-week average for claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, rose by 8,000 from the previous week to 215,000.
The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits for the week ending May 28 remained unchanged from the previous week at 1,306,000, the fewest since Jan. 10, 1970.
American workers are enjoying historically strong job security two years after the coronavirus pandemic plunged the economy into a short but devastating recession. Weekly applications for unemployment aid have been consistently below the pre-pandemic level of 225,000 for most of 2022, even as the overall economy contracted in the first quarter and concerns over inflation persist.
Last week, the government reported that U.S. employers added 390,000 jobs in May, extending a streak of solid hiring that has bolstered an economy under pressure from high inf lation and rising interest rates. The job growth in May, though healthy, was the lowest monthly gain in a year.
The prices of gas, food and most other goods and services jumped in May, raising inflation to a new four-decade high and giving American households no respite from rising costs.
Consumer prices surged 8.6% last month from a year earlier, faster than April’s year-over-year increase of 8.3%, the Labor Department said Friday. The new inflation figure, the highest since 1981, will heighten pressure on the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates aggressively.
On a month-to-month basis, prices jumped 1% from April to May, much faster than the 0.3% increase from March to April. Contributing to that surge were much higher prices for everything from airline tickets to restaurant meals to new and used cars. Those price spikes also elevated so-called “core” inflation, a measure that excludes volatile food and energy prices. In May, core prices jumped a sharp 0.6% for a second consecutive month. They’re now 6% above where they were a year ago.
Friday’s report underscored fears that inflation is spreading well beyond energy and goods whose prices are being driven up by clogged supply chains and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also sent stock prices tumbling. The increased pressure on the Fed to raises rates even faster — which means higher-cost loans for consumers and businesses — will raise the risk of a recession, too.
Gas prices rose 4% in May and have soared nearly 50% in one year. The national average price at the pump reached $4.99 per gallon Friday, according to the AAA, edging closer to an inflation-adjusted record high of $5.40.
The cost of groceries surged nearly 12% last month from a year earlier, the biggest such increase since 1979. Rising prices for grain and fertilizer after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is intensifying that rise. Restaurant prices jumped 7.4% in the past year, the largest 12-month gain since 1981, reflecting higher costs for food and workers.
Employers face immense pressure to raise pay in a job market that remains robust, with low unemployment, few layoffs and nearrecord job openings. But while average wages are rising at their fastest pace in decades, they aren’t increasing fast enough for most workers to keep pace with inflation. Many households accumulated savings from government stimulus aid during the pandemic and are now having to draw on those savings to pay bills.
Housing costs are still climbing. The government’s shelter index, which includes rents, hotel rates and a measure of what it costs to own a home, increased 5.5% in the past year, the most since 1991. Airline fares are up nearly 38% in the past year, the sharpest such rise since 1980.
Rampant inflation is imposing severe pressures on families. Lower-income and Black and Latinos, in particular, are struggling because, on average, a larger proportion of their income is consumed by necessities.
In light of Friday’s inflation reading, the Fed is all but certain to implement the fastest series of interest rate hikes in three decades. By sharply raising borrowing costs, the Fed hopes to cool spending and growth enough to curb inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. It will be a difficult balancing act.
The Fed has signaled that it will raise its key shortterm rate by a half-point — double the size of the usual hike — next week and again in July. Some investors had hoped the Fed would then slow its rate increases to a quarter-point hike when it meets in September or perhaps even pause its credit tightening. But with inflation raging hot, investors now foresee yet another half-point hike in September, which would be the fourth since April.
Surveys show that Americans see high inflation as the nation’s top problem, and most disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy. Congressional Republicans are hammering Democrats on the issue in the run-up to midterm elections this fall.