CASES: Just weeks after moving from the federal government’s “high” COVID-19 activity category to the “medium” rating thanks to falling hospitalization rates, Los Angeles County could soon graduate into the “low” category as case numbers continue to fall, the public health director said Tuesday.
Barbara Ferrer told the Board of Supervisors that transmission of the virus still remains elevated, but based on official infection numbers, the county could move to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “low” virus-activity category within the next week.
The categorization change would have no practical effect for residents, other than sending a message of an overall slowing of virus transmission.
The county moved into the “high” virus level in mid-July, thanks to a new infection rate that topped 200 per 100,000 residents and an average daily virus-related hospitalization rate that topped 10 per 100,000 residents. On Aug. 12, however, the county moved back to the “medium” category when the hospitalization rate fell below 10 per 100,000 residents.
Moving into the “low” category will require the county’s hospitalization rate to remain below that threshold, and for the rate of new infections to fall below 200 per 100,000 residents. That rate has been steadily falling, reaching 213 per 100,000 people as of Tuesday, down substantially from a month ago, Ferrer said.
She noted, however, that the official infection numbers reported by the county and the CDC represent an undercount of the actual number of cases that are occurring locally — thanks to the proliferation of at-home tests.
Ferrer also noted that the hospitalization rate is still fluctuating. Last week, the county’s hospitalization rate ticked up to 9.6 per 100,000 residents.
But Ferrer said the recent hospital numbers have been flawed by a glitch in the data-collection system utilized by hospitals to report admission numbers to the state. That issue has led to a revision of hospital numbers over the past week. She said that as of Tuesday, the COVID hospital admission rate in the county was at 8.7 per 100,000.
She also said that while the falling transmission rate is good news, a rate of 200 per 100,000 residents “is still high,” and residents should continue to take all available prevention measures to prevent infections. She urged residents to take that message to heart over the upcoming Labor Day weekend.
The county on Tuesday reported another 2,090 new COVID cases, raising the overall total from throughout the pandemic to 3,405,184. Another 14 virus-related deaths were also reported, giving the county a death toll of 33,138.
All of the 14 newly reported deaths had underlying health conditions.
The average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was 8.1% as of Tuesday.
According to state data — which is being reviewed due to the glitch in the data-collection system, there were 841 COVID-positive patients in county hospitals as of Tuesday, down from 889 on Saturday. Of those patients, 92 were being treated in intensive care, down from 102 on Saturday.
Health officials have said roughly 43% of COVID-positive hospital patients were actually admitted for virus-related illness, while the others were admitted for other reasons, with some only learning they were infected when they were tested at the hospital.
In Pasadena, the health department reported 29 new cases on September 2nd. There were no new fatalities in Pasadena.
Education: National test results released on Thursday showed in stark terms the pandemic’s devastating effects on American schoolchildren, with the performance of 9-year-olds in math and reading dropping to the levels from two decades ago.
This year, for the first time since the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests began tracking student achievement in the 1970s, 9-year-olds lost ground in math, and scores in reading fell by the largest margin in more than 30 years.
The declines spanned almost all races and income levels and were markedly worse for the lowest-performing students. While top performers in the 90th percentile showed a modest drop — three points in math — students in the bottom 10th percentile dropped by 12 points in math, four times the impact.
The Economy: The pace of US jobs growth slowed in August after an unexpected acceleration the previous month, though it remained high enough to suggest the Federal Reserve will plough ahead with its aggressive tightening of monetary policy. Economy shows resilience as U.S. adds 315,000 jobs Hiring slows but stays solid despite inflation. Average wage rises 5.2% year over year. THERE ARE roughly two advertised job openings for every unemployed worker. (David Zalubowski Associated Press)
By Christopher Rugaber for the Associated Press: America’s employers slowed their hiring but still added 315,000 jobs in August in the face of rising interest rates, high inflation and sluggish consumer spending.
The government reported Friday that last month’s job gain was down from 526,000 in July and less than the average gain of the previous three months. The unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, from a half-century low of 3.5% in July, as more Americans came off the sidelines to look for jobs.
Even though the job gain was smaller than in July, the report still pointed to a resilient labor market and an economy that is not near recession.
The number of people looking for work jumped last month, which boosted the unemployment rate because not all of them found jobs immediately. The influx of job seekers should help employers fill a near-record number of openings in the coming months.
The smaller job growth in August will probably be welcomed by the Federal Reserve. The Fed is rapidly raising interest rates to try to cool hiring and wage growth, which have been consistently strong. Businesses typically pass the cost of higher wages on to their customers through higher prices, thereby fueling inflation.
Fed officials hope that by raising borrowing costs across the economy, they can reduce inflation from a near-40-year high . Some economists fear, though, that the Fed is tightening credit so aggressively that it will eventually tip the economy into recession.
Average hourly pay rose 10 cents to $32.36 in August, an increase of 5.2% from a year ago. That is still higher than Fed officials want to see. Some have said they would prefer wages to be rising at a pace closer to 3% to help rein in rising prices.
Most industries added workers last month, with the biggest increases in professional and business services, which gained 68,000 jobs. That sector includes architects, engineers and some tech workers. Healthcare added 61,500 jobs, retailers 44,000.
The number of job openings remains high and the pace of layoffs low, indicating that most businesses still want to hire and that the economy probably isn’t in, or even close to, a recession. The broadest measure of the economy’s output — gross domestic product — has shrunk for two straight quarters, meeting one informal definition of a recession.
Most economists, though, don’t think a recession has begun until the unemployment rate has risen steadily.
Even so, worries about a forthcoming slump have grown after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, in a high-profile speech last week, made clear that to curb inflation, the Fed was prepared to continue raising short-term interest rates for the foreseeable future and to keep them elevated.
Powell warned that the Fed’s inflation fight would probably cause pain for Americans in the form of a weaker economy and job losses.
The Fed chair also said the job market is “clearly out of balance,” with demand for workers “substantially exceeding” the available supply.
Friday’s jobs figures and a report earlier this week that the number of job openings rose in July after three months of declines suggested that the Fed’s rate hikes so far haven’t restored any such balance. There are roughly two advertised job openings for every unemployed worker.
The central bank has raised its short-term rate to a range of 2.25% to 2.5% this year, after the fastest series of increases since the early 1990s.
It has projected that its key rate will reach a range of 3.25% to 3.5% by year’s end. Those rate hikes have made borrowing and spending steadily more expensive for individuals and businesses. The housing market, in particular, has been weakened by higher loan rates.
The jobs figures are helping to fill out the economic backdrop as campaigning in this fall’s midterm elections intensifies. Republicans have pointed to high inflation to try to pummel Democrats. The Biden administration has pushed back and claimed credit for a robust pace of job growth.
Wages are rising at their fastest pace in decades as employers scramble to fill jobs at a time when fewer Americans are working or seeking work in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Average hourly pay jumped 5.2% in July from a year earlier. Still, that was less than the 5.6% year-over-year rise in March, which was the largest annual increase in 15 years of records outside of the spring of 2020, when the pandemic struck.
Some skeptics warn that the Fed may be focusing excessively on the strength of the job market when other indicators suggest that the economy is noticeably weakening. Consumer spending, for example, and manufacturing have slowed. The central bank might raise rates too far as a result, to the point where it causes a deeper recession than might be needed to conquer inflation.
The economic picture is highly uncertain, with the healthy pace of hiring and low unemployment at odds with the government’s estimate that the economy shrank in the first six months of this year.
A related measure of the economy’s growth that focuses on incomes shows that the economy is still expanding, if at a weak pace.
So far, the Fed’s rate hikes have severely dented the housing market . With the average rate on a 30-year mortgage reaching 5.66% last week — double the level of a year ago — sales of existing homes have fallen for six straight months.
Consumers have moderated their spending in the face of much higher prices, though they spent more in July even after adjusting for inflation. But companies’ investment in new equipment has slowed, indicating that they have an increasingly cautious outlook on the economy.
In the 19 countries that use the euro as currency, consumer prices rose 9.1 percent, up from the previous record, 8.9 percent, set in July. A year earlier, the rate was just 3 percent — a level that at the time set off alarms for reaching a decade-long high, but that would now be greeted with relief.
Year-over-year change in eurozone harmonized index of consumer prices
Nine countries in the eurozone registered double-digit inflation. Lithuania’s and Latvia’s rates were over 20 percent. France was among the few countries where the price index dipped, to 6.5 percent, the lowest in the group.