COVID: From the LA Times: COVID is ‘heating up all around.’ Are masks needed? By Rong-Gong Lin II. The uptick in coronavirus transmission this summer has not brought major alarm from health experts. But it is raising questions about whether the risks are high enough to go back to safety measures that many have abandoned.
But swearing off masks for good — even when sitting on a plane next to someone who is coughing or sneezing — would unnecessarily put people at higher risk for illness.
In response to the latest uptick of coronavirus levels in California, a number of local health officials are largely reiterating the same advice: Masks work, but it’s a personal preference whether people wear them.
Having test kits available should anyone feel sick is also a good idea.
And masking doesn’t need to be done all the time for it to make a difference.
Still, with COVID-19 far less dangerous than earlier in the pandemic — thanks, in part, to vaccinations and anti-COVID drugs as well as immunity from past infections — it’s really up to people to decide for themselves.
Coronavirus levels are ticking up, but overall rates are still quite low.
Nationally, the number of new weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations has risen by roughly 12% each week over the last three weeks.
But the most recent number — about 9,100 new COVID-19 hospitalizations for the week that ended July 29 — is still near a record low.
In Los Angeles County, the local Department of Public Health’s guidance maintains that masking for the general public is based on individual preference.
L.A. County currently has a low level of COVID-19 hospitalizations as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is the case for all counties in California and most nationwide.
L.A. County still strongly recommends masking on public transit, in transportation hubs such as airports, among patients and visitors in healthcare settings, among people exposed to COVID-19 and among those who have symptoms of respiratory illness.
Healthcare workers in L.A. County are still required to wear masks when providing care or working with patients and clients.
Staying up to date on vaccinations is also an important factor in protection. People who have not received an updated shot since the September 2022 boosters that were designed to protect against Omicron subvariants BA.5 and BA.4 are overdue for one.
Pasadena Public Health Department (PPHD) reminds the community that health care workers (HCW) in Pasadena must be up to date with COVID-19 vaccination and must wear masks in healthcare and direct care settings as required by Pasadena Health Officer Orders.
Pasadena has observed evidence of a surge in local COVID-19 cases. Over the last month, there has been a 35% increase in weekly cases. We know this is an underestimate of cases because of the widespread adoption of at-home antigen tests, which do not require reporting to the public health department. Additionally, the COVID-19 test positivity rate in Los Angeles County increased from 5.5% to 7.6% this week. A spike from previously stable rates this year.
From ABC News: A new variant now makes up a plurality of COVID-19 cases in the United States, federal data shows. EG.5, an offshoot of the omicron variant and descendant of the XBB strain, has been circulating in the country since at least April. However, as of Aug. 5, it accounts for 17.3% of COVID infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is an increase from the 1.1% of cases it was estimated to make up at the end of May, CDC data shows. It comes as COVID hospitalizations tick up across the U.S., increasing 12.5% in the most recent week to a total of 9,056 hospitalizations, according to the federal health agency.
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, EG.5.1, which falls under the EG.5 lineage, makes up an estimated 14.55% of cases, making it the second most common strain, according to the UK Health Security Agency.
Public health experts said there is no evidence EG.5 causes more severe illness and that it's normal for the virus to mutate and new variants to emerge.
And from the New York Times: Concern is rising about the Covid-19 variant EG.5. This week, it became the dominant variant in the United States, and the World Health Organization classified EG.5 as a “variant of interest,” meaning it has genetic changes that give it an advantage and its prevalence is growing. So how worried should people be about it?
While severe illness in older adults and people with underlying conditions is always a concern, as is long Covid in anyone who gets infected, experts say EG.5 does not pose a substantial threat — or at least no more of one than any of the other major variants currently circulating.
“It’s a concern that it’s increasing, but it doesn’t look like something that’s vastly different from what’s already been circulating in the U.S. for the past three to four months,” said Andrew Pekosz, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. “So I think that’s what tempers my concern about this variant, at this point in time.”
Even the W.H.O. stated in its announcement that, based on the available evidence, “the public health risk posed by EG.5 is evaluated as low at the global level.”
Inflation: from the New York Times: Fresh inflation data offered the latest evidence that price increases were meaningfully cooling, good news for consumers and policymakers alike more than a year into the Federal Reserve’s campaign to slow the economy and wrestle cost increases back under control.
The Consumer Price Index climbed 3.2 percent in July from a year earlier, according to a report released on Thursday. That was the first acceleration in 13 months, and followed a 3 percent reading in June.
But that tick up requires context. Inflation was rapid in June last year and slightly slower the next month. That means that when this year’s numbers were measured against 2022 readings, June looked lower and July appeared higher than if the year-earlier figures had been more stable.
Economists were more keenly focused on another figure: the “core” inflation index, which strips out volatile food and fuel prices. That picked up by 4.7 percent from last July, down from 4.8 percent in June. And on a monthly basis, core inflation roughly matched an encouragingly low pace from the previous month.
The upshot was that inflation continued to show signs of seriously receding after two years of rapid price increases that have bedeviled policymakers and burdened shoppers — and the details of the July report offered positive hints for the future. Rent prices have been moderating, a trend that is expected to persist in coming months and that should help to weigh down inflation overall. An index that tracks services prices outside of housing is picking up only slowly.
Also from the NY Times: By German Lopez. Good, but not too good: Over the past few weeks, sentiments about the economy have gone from bleak to optimistic.
Inflation is down. The U.S. is still adding jobs, but not so quickly that it is prompting fears of an overheating labor market. Wages are now rising faster than prices, but also not quickly enough to renew worries about higher inflation. In short: The economy is good, but not too good.
What does it all mean for you? The chances of a job-wrecking, wage-crushing recession appear lower than they have in years.
America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, has been working since 2022 to cool the economy and, with it, inflation. Yet each step the Fed took to raise the cost of borrowing money carried risks — namely, going too far and causing an economic downturn. While it’s too early for the Fed to declare victory, economists are now more optimistic that the economy will make a so-called soft landing: Prices will stabilize without a recession.
“Things are good,” my colleague Jeanna Smialek, who covers the U.S. economy, told me. “But I wouldn’t want to overstate it.”
Balancing act: To understand what is happening with the economy, let’s look at the Federal Reserve. It has a dual mandate: to stabilize prices while keeping unemployment low.
The two goals can be at odds. Consider this scenario: If employers are rapidly adding jobs, there may not be enough workers to fill all the new positions. Knowing this, employers can entice applicants by offering higher pay. To fund those higher wages, companies might try to raise their prices. This is just one of many ways a strong economy can lead to higher prices — also known as inflation.
This dynamic is why traditionally good economic news can turn into bad news during inflationary periods. America is adding a lot of jobs? That may be an overheating labor market and could cause prices to rise. Wages are up? That could translate to higher prices from companies and too much demand from consumers.
The Federal Reserve’s recent mission has been to make sure the economy does not become or remain too good. By raising interest rates, it hoped to slow lending, investment and, eventually, inflation. In doing so, it also risked suppressing the economy to the point of a recession. That scenario played out in the 1980s after years of stubbornly high inflation, and many economists had feared that a repeat would be needed to bring down prices today.
So far, though, the economy appears to have reached a better balance. Last month, prices were up 3.2 percent compared with a year before, down from a peak of 9.1 percent last summer. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, near a record low. And wage growth again surpassed inflation. Uncertain times: None of this is a guarantee of future prosperity. The economy is tremendously complex, and it often takes turns that few saw coming. Inflation is still above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent, and minutes from July’s Fed meeting released yesterday suggest policymakers are determined to slow it further. Some experts are more optimistic now, but they tend to mix that outlook with caution.
Mortgage Rates (from the LA Times): Mortgage rates rise past 7%, highest since 2002. THE AVERAGE rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was 7.09% this week. By Andrew Khouri
Home mortgage rates have surged past 7%, hitting the highest level in more than 20 years and dealing another blow to Americans trying to break into the housing market. The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage was 7.09% this week, up from 6.96% last week and the highest since 2002, according to data released Thursday from mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
One month ago, rates were at 6.78% and for much of the year held in the low-to-mid-6% range.
But borrowing costs have been on the rise lately. Inflation is a major driver of mortgage rates, and amid continued economic growth investors increasingly think inflation will prove stickier than they hoped.
Those investment bets have a big effect for potential home buyers.
The difference between a 6.78% rate and a 7.09% rate adds an extra $133 to the monthly mortgage payment for an $800,000 house. Compared with where rates were in early February, today’s payment is $422 more for the same priced house.
The last time rates were higher was in 2002, but they briefly hit 7.08% — just under this week’s levels — in fall of last year.
At the time rates were exploding, more than doubling in a year as inflation soared and the Federal Reserve reversed easy money policies.
The rapid rise quickly sapped buyer borrowing power and caused home prices to fall. But today’s buyers face a different market, one where prices are rising.
From the Financial Times: China’s economy has fallen into deflation as consumer prices contracted for the first time in more than two years, in one of the starkest indicators of the challenges facing policymakers as they struggle to revive consumption.
The consumer price index fell 0.3 per cent year on year in July, compared with no change a month earlier. The producer price index, a gauge of prices as goods leave factory gates, was down 4.4 per cent in July.
UK inflation falls to 6.8% in July: Lower gas and electricity prices drove a sharp drop in UK inflation to 6.8 per cent in July from 7.9 per cent the previous month, the lowest rate of price increases since February last year.