Restaurants Care Resilience Fund applications are open. There's still time for restaurants to apply for the the Restaurants Care Resilience Fund grant! Applications are due by April 30 and can be found at www.restaurantscare.org/resilience.
This year, the CRA Foundation is investing in two things that keep a restaurant running, kitchens and crews. Grants will be awarded to independent restaurants for kitchen equipment upgrades or retention bonuses —whichever need is greater.
The Resilience Fund provides cash grants of $3,000 and one year of small business support services to independent restaurants. Grants will be available to all California-based restaurant owners with fewer than three units/concepts and under $3 million in annual revenue (combined for all units). All the eligibility criteria and tips to complete the application are at www.restaurantscare.org/resilience. Last year, the Resilience Fund awarded 318 grants to independent restaurant owners. Lead funder SoCalGas and generous funders Wells Fargo for making this possible!
-------------------------------
Cases: Pasadena had 21 new cases on Thursday with no new fatalities. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Pasadena has seen 28, 495 cases and 414 fatalities related to COVID-19.
______________________
Mask Mandates: The Biden administration on Wednesday appealed a federal court ruling striking down the mask requirement for passengers on planes, trains, buses and other public transportation after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that the mandate was “necessary” to protect the public from the spread of the coronavirus.
The decision came two days after a federal judge in Florida struck down the mask mandate, and set off a rush among airlines, some public transit systems and even Uber and Lyft to abandon mask requirements. Some pilots announced the abrupt change midflight, prompting celebration — but also anxiety — among virus-weary passengers.
While the C.D.C. wants to keep the mandate intact, it is also pressing the appeal to preserve its public health powers. But doing so is potentially risky; if the ruling striking down the mandate is upheld, that could permanently weaken the agency’s authority.
Even if the Biden administration wins the case, there will be backlash among Americans who felt liberated by the lifting of the mask requirement, which also applied to transportation hubs like airports, seaports and train stations.
Caltech announced it has reinstated its Universal Indoor Masking policy, which requires everyone to wear high-quality masks (such as surgical, N95, KN95, or KF95 masks) in all indoor locations on campus after the Institute recently recorded “elevated rates” of COVID-19 infections. In the last two weeks, 62 cases have been reported among students and employees, with as many as 42 students living in campus residences having reported a new infection through either symptomatic testing or the twice-weekly surveillance testing program. Caltech is also suspended all large social gatherings on campus as of Friday, in order to scale back high-risk social engagements.
LA County Revised Mask Order: Revised to continue to require masks in all public transit within the County, such as, commuter trains, subways, buses, taxis and ride-shares, and indoor transportation hubs, such as, airport terminals, bus, train and subway stations, marina or port stations. It remains the CDC’s continuing assessment that at this time an order requiring masking for indoor public transit is necessary for public health. This masking requirement will be reassessed when: community transmission of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County drops to the Moderate Level OR the CDC’s assessment is that an order requiring masking in the transportation corridor is no longer necessary for protection of the public’s health OR within 30 days of this Order, whichever occurs first
Los Angeles County health officials urged parents and students to be vigilant as classes resume following spring break to protect against spread of the coronavirus, calling on anyone showing signs of illness to stay home and announcing plans for school-based vaccination clinics across the region.
County health officials had been reporting rises in school-based outbreaks in recent weeks, although the numbers fell due to spring break.
With classes back in session, the county plans to operate 171 school-based vaccination clinics this week, offering pediatric doses for those ages 5-11 and regular doses and boosters for those 12 and older.
The county reported 15 new COVID-19-related deaths on Wednesday, lifting the cumulative death toll to 31,899. Another 1,146 coronavirus cases were also reported, raising the total from throughout the pandemic to 2,855,687. The average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus fell slightly, reaching 2.5%, compared with 2.8% on Tuesday. According to state figures, there were 230 coronavirus patients in county hospitals as of Wednesday, up slightly from 226 on Tuesday.
More: The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors could move closer Tuesday to adopting a permanent outdoor dining program in unincorporated areas, following the success of temporary measures put in place to assist restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The board last year instructed its staff to outline steps required to make the outdoor dining program permanent. A subsequent report noted that a pair of ordinances would be required to amend regulations governing uses of public rights-of-way, and governing uses on private property.
The board will consider instructing its legal staff to craft those ordinances, and bring them back for approval within the next six months.
California workplace regulators are poised to extend mandatory pay for workers affected by the coronavirus through the end of 2022, more than two months after state lawmakers restored similar benefits through September.
The decision expected Thursday again pits management against labor as the seven-member Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board renews revised workplace safety rules that would otherwise expire in early May.
The Economy: The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday downgraded the outlook for the world economy this year and next, blaming Russia’s war in Ukraine for disrupting global commerce, pushing up oil prices, threatening food supplies and increasing uncertainty already heightened by the coronavirus and its variants. The 190-country lender cut its forecast for global growth to 3.6% this year, a steep falloff from 6.1% last year and from the 4.4% growth it had expected for 2022 back in January. It also said it expects the world economy to grow 3.6% again next year, slightly slower than the 3.8% it forecast in January.
The war — and the darkening outlook — came just as the global economy appeared to be shaking off the impact of the highly infectious omicron variant. “The war will slow economic growth and increase inflation,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told reporters on Tuesday.
Now, the IMF expects Russia’s economy — battered by sanctions — to shrink 8.5% this year and Ukraine’s 35%.
U.S. economic growth is expected to drop to 3.7% this year from 5.7% in 2021, which had been the fastest growth since 1984. The new forecast marks a downgrade from the 4% the IMF had predicted at the beginning of the year. Hobbling U.S. growth this year will be Federal Reserve interest rate increases, meant to combat resurgent inflation, and an economic slowdown in key American trading partners.
Europe, heavily dependent on Russian energy, will bear the brunt of the economic fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war. For the 19 countries that share the euro currency, the IMF forecasts collective growth of 2.8% in 2022, down sharply from the 3.9% it expected in January and from 5.3% last year.
The IMF expects the growth of the Chinese economy, the world’s second biggest, to decelerate to 4.4% this year from 8.1% in 2021. Beijing’s zero-COVID-19 strategy has meant draconian lockdowns in bustling commercial cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Some commodity-exporting countries, benefiting from the rising price of raw materials, are likely to defy the trend toward slower growth. For example, the IMF raised its growth forecast for oil producer Nigeria to 3.4% this year from the 2.7% the fund said it expected back in January.
The world economy had bounced back with surprising strength from 2020’s brief but brutal coronavirus recession. But the rebound presented problems of its own: Caught by surprise, businesses scrambled to meet a surge in customer orders, which overwhelmed factories, ports and freight yards. The result: long shipping delays and higher prices.
The IMF forecasts a 5.7% jump in consumer prices in the world’s advanced economies this year, the most since 1984. In the United States, inflation is running at a four-decade high.
Central banks are raising interest rates to counter rising prices, a move that could choke off economic growth. By driving up prices of oil, natural gas and other commodities, the Russia- Ukraine war has made their task of fighting inflation while preserving the economic recovery even trickier.
The conflict also has “triggered the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II,” the IMF noted, and cut supplies and raised prices of fertilizer and grain produced in Russia and Ukraine, threatening food security in Africa and in the Middle East. In a speech last week, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva warned of the threat of “more hunger, more poverty and more social unrest.”
The IMF emphasized the uncertainty surrounding its forecasts and the difficulty governments and central banks face in trying to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances.
More: High prices, homelessness, rising crime and health concerns are taking their toll on the quality of life in Los Angeles County, with a UCLA survey released Friday revealing the lowest level of residents’ overall satisfaction in the survey’s seven-year history.
The Quality of Life Index, measured in a survey led by the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, dipped to an overall rating of 53 — on a scale from 10 to 100. This year’s score was down from 58 last year, and it marked the first time the rating has ever fallen below the survey’s median of 55 since the measurement began in 2016.
The cost-of-living rating fell from 45 last year to 39 this year, while the public safety rating fell from 60 last year to 56 this year. The education score fell from 48 to 46. Declines were also registered in the transportation/traffic category, and the jobs/economy category.
In other key findings, 69% of respondents said they believe life has been fundamentally changed by COVID-19, with only 28% expressing confidence that life will eventually return to “the way it was.”
Participants also weighed in on their satisfaction with local elected officials, with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti viewed favorably by 45% of respondents — a sharp drop from 62% in 2020. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva received very or somewhat favorable ratings from 37% of respondents, while District Attorney George Gascón saw his support drop to 23%, down from 31% a year earlier.
And: Funding pandemic readiness Ballot measure would tax the rich to prepare public health system for the next big threat. By Angela Hart
Gabe Bankman-Fried, a former Wall Street trader, has raised $12 million from a cryptocurrency trading firm founded by his brother, Sam Bankman-Fried.
Dustin Moskovitz, a billionaire who roomed with Mark Zuckerberg in college and helped found Facebook in 2004, funds a nonprofit with his wife that has ponied up $6.5 million.
And Max Henderson, a startup investor and former Google executive, is using that money to spearhead a campaign for a statewide ballot initiative that would tax California’s wealthiest residents and fund public health initiatives, with the ambitious goal of preventing another pandemic from ripping across the country. These entrepreneurs have applied their tech and data expertise to COVID-related philanthropic ventures. They say the government must dramatically increase its investments in the crumbling public health system, considering how unprepared California and the U.S. were for the COVID-19 crisis.
The proposed tax would generate as much as $15 billion over 10 years, according to a state government analysis of the measure, which organizers say is close to qualifying for the November ballot.
Californians this year will decide on a slew of healthcare-related initiatives and tax proposals. Voter support for raising taxes appears tepid, however. Californians in 2020 rejected a measure that sought to raise some commercial property taxes, and taxpayer advocates argue that opposition to higher taxes has intensified as gas, housing and other costs have risen.
The public health initiative, called the California Pandemic Early Detection and Prevention Act, would impose an additional tax “at the rate of 0.75% on that portion of a taxpayer’s taxable income” that exceeds $5 million. The tax would last for 10 years, through 2032, and generate $500 million to $1.5 billion annually, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The campaign had raised nearly $19 million as of early April, according to organizers and state records. Organizers expect the measure to qualify for the November ballot because the campaign has gathered nearly all of the 1 million signatures required. The signatures must be validated by the California secretary of state.
If the measure passes, half the proceeds would fund an institute to detect and prevent new disease outbreaks, 25% would pay for safety upgrades at schools and 25% would help rebuild local public health workforces and infrastructure.
Critics argue that Californians are already overtaxed. And the public health initiative probably won’t be the only proposal on the November ballot that would increase taxes on high-income earners.
Another measure, which appears likely to make the ballot, would raise the personal income taxes of residents who earn more than $2 million a year to fund electric vehicles and wildfire suppression efforts.
If the initiative passes, it would provide the largest infusion of money for the state’s public health system since it was created.
Researchers and public health experts say that’s crucial because deadlier pandemic threats are on the horizon.