Small Business Grant Opportunities:

  • The Progressive® Driving Small Business Forward Fund-Funded by Progressive®, the Driving Small Business Forward Fund provides $25,000 grants to help Black entrepreneurs purchase a commercial vehicle used to accelerate their business. Applications for the current round are open through June 2, 2023, at 6 p.m. ET. To be eligible, a business must be majority owned (51%+) and operated by at least one Black entrepreneur. No purchase necessary. 18+, US only. See the Terms and Conditions for full eligibility criteria. Apply now.
  • Restaurants Care Resilience Fund - $5,000, Applications open April 15, due May 7. SoCalGas will contribute $1 million in aid from its donor advised fund to help small restaurants with improvements, upgrades, employee retention and to manage debt, losses and rising costs. Funding for these grants is made possible by SoCalGas, PG&E, and SDG&E.
  • Verizon Small Business Digital Ready – $10,000, Applications due May 12. A specific focus on helping diverse and under-resourced business owners. Small businesses can unlock the application for this round of grant funding by first registering on Verizon Small Business Digital Ready and completing at least two of the following, in any combination: courses, live coaching or community events.
  • Economic Opportunity Grants – Up to $20,000, Applications due May 20. The Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity will disburse more than $54 million in grants to small businesses, microbusinesses and non-profits. Register for a free info session on how to apply.

 

Cases:

Virus levels in L.A. County sewage could signal Arcturus-The subvariant has been making up a greater percentage of cases nationwide.
By Rong-Gong Lin II for the LA Times.

Coronavirus levels in Los Angeles County wastewater have ticked up, potentially as a result of the arrival of a more infectious Omicron subvariant dubbed Arcturus.

The latest strain, known officially as XBB.1.16, is probably responsible for a rise in coronavirus cases in India, where there have been a number of anecdotal reports of what had been a rare COVID-19 symptom, especially in children: pinkeye.

Arcturus has been making up a greater percentage of coronavirus cases nationwide. It accounted for an estimated 10% of U.S. cases in the seven-day span that ended Saturday; the prior week, it was about 6%; and the week before that, it was 3%.

The California Department of Public Health estimates that Arcturus accounted for about 7% of coronavirus cases in the state over the same week. At least three Arcturus cases have been identified in L.A. County, the agency said Thursday.

It’s too early to say whether Arcturus is associated with a greater rate of pinkeye than older coronavirus variants.

But the health agency said people “should be aware that itchy, watery or red eyes may be a sign of COVID-19 infection, and these symptoms should not simply be dismissed as a result of pollen or seasonal allergies, especially if someone more vulnerable to severe illness could be exposed.”
Pinkeye , also known as conjunctivitis, can lead to eye damage if untreated. Officials urge people to use at-home coronavirus tests to determine whether they are infected.

The increase in wastewater levels in L.A. County may be an early indication of increased spread of the coronavirus, health officials said, although reported cases are still relatively stable, as are hospitalizations and deaths. For the most recent week, there were 54 COVID-19 deaths reported in Los Angeles County. There were 44 deaths reported the prior week, and the week before that, 59.

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that because Arcturus is related to recent strains of the coronavirus, it is expected that vaccines and anti-COVID therapeutic drugs such as Paxlovid will still be quite effective against severe illness and death.

That said, it remains important that people get the updated COVID-19 vaccination. Only about 40% of L.A. County seniors 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccination, which was introduced in September.

COVID-19 remains a significant cause of death, even as the intensity of the pandemic has dropped considerably. In 2022, COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death in Los Angeles County, behind coronary heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease, according to a preliminary data analysis by the Department of Public Health.

The rest of the leading causes of death in L.A. County last year were stroke, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, unintentional drug overdose, hypertension and pneumonia/flu.

Still, COVID-19’s third-place ranking represents an improvement since 2021, when the illness was the leading cause of death. In 2020, COVID-19 was the second-leading cause of death, trailing coronary heart disease.

Those results demonstrate how the risk of COVID-19 to the general population has declined. Vaccinations became plentiful by mid-2021, and anti-COVID-19 therapeutic drugs by mid-2022.

About 260,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported nationally in 2022. There were about 472,000 deaths in 2021, and about 355,000 deaths in 2020. More than 40,000 COVID-19 deaths have been reported nationally this year.

Older people who are unvaccinated or not up to date on their vaccinations are the most likely to die from COVID-19.

Although some health experts are wearing masks less often, given lower coronavirus transmission levels, they say they still try to take reasonable steps to avoid infection. Reducing the risk of infection is especially important if you’re older, in a higher risk group or have an underlying health condition.

If you get a coronavirus infection, “you still have to isolate for five days, so it’s kind of a bummer,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious-disease expert. Even so, Chin-Hong said he no longer has a problem dining at indoor restaurants.

ar a group of passengers who came back from Europe “and they were all hacking and coughing, and none of them were wearing masks.”

State epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan said in a recent briefing that if she sees increases in COVID-19, she’ll probably still test her family before they have an indoor meal with her parents.

Death rates drop: From the Pasadena Star-News: The number of COVID deaths continues to fall in California and the rest of the country, dropping 65% in the last three months in the Golden State, another sign that the virus is losing its grip on our lives.

In March, California added just 540 names to its COVID death total, and numbers for April could be even lower.

After three years of the pandemic, the state has shown a notable pattern of decline in deaths from the virus: An average of 5,100 Californians died in each of the first 12 months, starting in April 2020. That dropped by more than half in the second year to 2,400 and by even more to 900 in the most-recent 12-month period. A total of 101,000 Californians have died from COVID since the pandemic began.

“I think we’re finally seeing the fruits of the fact that we’re dealing with a less virulent organism,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. “And we’ve got a high immune population to withstand serious infection.”

The declining number of deaths — mirroring a drop in COVID hospital patients — comes despite the long-anticipated end to California’s COVID emergency and almost universal shedding of masks and other precautions over the last months.

March saw one of the lowest death tolls since the virus first overwhelmed hospitals and intensive care units in early 2020. The pattern is similar across the country, with nearly 8,800 Americans dying in March, the lowest monthly death total since last summer. But the virus continues to be a significant health threat for the elderly and others with compromised health: In California, COVID still claimed more lives in February and March of this year than died in the entire “severe” 2017-2018 flu season.

The Economy:

From the Associated Press: GDP growth rate slows to 1.1% in first quarter-Consumer spending rises 3.7% even as housing takes a hit. By Paul Wiseman

The nation’s economy slowed sharply from January through March, decelerating to just a 1.1% annual pace as higher interest rates hammered the housing market and businesses reduced their inventories.

Thursday’s estimate from the Commerce Department showed that the nation’s gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of economic output — weakened after growing at an annual rate of 3.2% from July through September and 2.6% from October through December.
But consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, remained resilient, growing at a 3.7% annual pace, the fastest such rate in nearly two years. Spending on goods, in particular, was solid: It rose at its fastest pace since the second quarter of 2021.
Economists had been expecting the GDP to grow at a 1.9% pace in the January-March quarter. Behind much of the quarter’s weakness was a sharp reduction in business inventories, which subtracted roughly 2.3 percentage points from overall growth. Companies typically slash their inventories when they anticipate a coming downturn.

The economy’s slowdown reflects the effects of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive drive to tame inflation, with nine interest rate hikes over the last year. The surge in borrowing costs is expected to send the economy into a recession sometime this year. Although inflation has steadily eased from the four-decade high it reached last year, it remains far above the Fed’s 2% target.
The housing market, which is especially vulnerable to higher loan rates, has been battered. And many banks have tightened their lending standards since the failure last month of two major U.S. banks, making it even harder to borrow to buy a house or a car or to expand a business.

Many economists say the cumulative effect of the Fed’s rate hikes has yet to be fully felt. Still, the central bank’s policymakers are aiming for a so-called soft landing: cooling growth enough to curb inflation yet not so much as to send the world’s largest economy tumbling into a recession.
There is widespread skepticism that the Fed will succeed. An economic model used by the Conference Board, a business research group, puts the probability of a U.S. recession over the next year at 99%.

The Conference Board’s recession probability gauge had hung around zero from September 2020, as the economy rebounded explosively from the COVID-19 recession, until March 2022, when the Fed started raising rates to fight inflation.

Thursday’s GDP report was the first of three estimates that the Commerce Department will make of growth in the January-March quarter. Economists expect growth to further weaken in the current April-June quarter — to just a 0.3% annual pace, according to the latest survey by data firm FactSet.

A key question is whether — and by how much — consumer spending will weaken. Retail sales had enjoyed a strong start in January, aided by warmer-than-expected weather and bigger Social Security checks. But in February and again in March, retail sales tumbled, suggesting that consumers were tiring as the first quarter of the year came to an end. Even so, some economists were impressed that spending has held up as well as it has even after nine Fed rate hikes have led to higher costs for loans including mortgages, auto purchases, credit cards and corporate borrowing.

From the Financial Times: The eurozone economy returned to growth in the first three months of the year as output expanded 0.1 per cent, but it undershot economists’ expectations as stagnation in Germany offset stronger performances elsewhere in the bloc.