Cases: It’s not a “surge” by any means, but COVID-19 transmission continues to be widespread across Los Angeles County, the Public Health director said Thursday, noting increases in key metrics used to track the virus and warning of the suddenly increased presence of yet another even more communicable variant.
In pure numbers, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer reported another 2,335 COVID-19 infections in the county Thursday. The daily average number of new cases logged by the county over the past seven days rose to 1,764, up from 1,261 the previous week, she said.
The daily average case number is roughly triple the number it was a month ago, Ferrer said.
She also noted small but steady increases over the past week in the number of COVID-19-positive people in county hospitals. The number increased to 249 on Thursday, up from 235 on Wednesday. The number of those patients being treated in intensive care was 30, up from 28 a day earlier.
Ferrer noted that those numbers are still relatively low when compared to the winter surge numbers that topped 8,000. She credited widespread vaccination, therapeutics and immunity from prior infection for preventing people who are getting infected from winding up hospitalized.
Health officials have warned in recent weeks that the rising case numbers may actually be bigger than the figures reflected by testing results — since many people are testing at home and may not be reporting results to the county. And many others may not be getting tested at all because they are not becoming seriously ill.
In hopes of countering those lapses, the county monitors concentrations of COVID-19 in four wastewater systems across the area. The most recent results show that the average concentration of the virus found in most of those systems has risen sharply, with two of them showing nearly double the rate from two weeks ago, and a third showing a sharp upward rise. But the fourth system monitored actually showed a small decrease.
According to Ferrer, the infectious BA.2 subvariant of COVID-19 is now responsible for 88% of the local cases that underwent special testing to identify variants. BA.2 has been blamed for increasing infection numbers locally and nationally, with officials saying it is exponentially more transmissible than the Omicron variant that fueled the winter surge in cases.
There’s another variant to worry about. Experts had previously identified an offshoot of BA.2 that has been dubbed BA.2.12.1, and it is now rapidly increasing its grip. That new offshoot was detected in 7% of L.A. County infections that underwent testing during the week that ended April 9 — up from 3% the previous week.
Ferrer said state officials have estimated that BA.2.12.1 could represent half of all infections in California within a matter of days. She said experts have estimated that BA.2.12.1 is roughly 20% to 30% more infectious than BA.2.
It’s still unknown of BA.2.12.1 causes more severe illness or might be more resistant to vaccines.
Coronavirus cases are continuing to climb in California, but it remains unclear whether hospitalizations will also begin to tick upward, as is already happening nationally.
California is now reporting an average of about 5,000 new coronavirus infections a day, up nearly 85% from last month.
Statewide, the coronavirus case rate has risen to 95 cases a week for every 100,000 residents. A rate of 100 or more is considered a high rate of transmission — the worst of four categories defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But hospitalizations have yet to follow the same path in California, and in fact are at near-record lows. On Tuesday, 1,008 coronavirus-positive patients were hospitalized statewide.
Los Angeles County is experiencing a similar trend. The nation’s most populous county is now reporting 1,700 cases a day — which amounts to a rate of 120 cases a week for every 100,000 residents. The last time the county’s case rate exceeded 100 was early March.
Like the state, this bump in cases has not yet triggered a flood of new COVID-19 patients. On Friday, the number of coronavirus-positive patients in Los Angeles County fell to 209 — the lowest single-day total on record, state data show. The count had crept up slightly, to 235, as of Tuesday.
The fact that hospitalizations haven’t yet risen in L.A. County “may be due to the typical delay we see between cases and hospitalizations,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said last week.
But it’s also possible “that fewer infected individuals are requiring hospital care at this time, which suggests that vaccines and therapeutics are doing a great job preventing severe disease,” she added.
The San Francisco Bay Area is still experiencing a low hospitalization rate, despite the region having California’s highest case rate — at 143 cases a week for every 100,000 residents.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious-diseases expert at UC San Francisco, tweeted Friday that “hospitals [were] eerily quiet.” Only 12 coronavirus-positive patients were at the campus’ hospitals that day, and none needed to be hooked up to machines to help them breathe.
It’s also possible California is simply running behind other parts of the nation, a trend previously observed in the pandemic.
Some experts say the national increase in cases — fueled by the BA.2.12.1 Omicron subvariant that is now dominating New York — appears to be steadily increasing.
The new “wave is gaining steam,” tweeted Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates 3 out of 5 Americans have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, up from 1 in 3 overall last fall, indicating how easily the omicron variant spread through the country over the winter.
The study also found children were more likely to have been infected than older adults, with the rate among kids rising from less than half last fall to 3 out of 4.
But with new cases on the rise in California and much of the country, CDC officials cautioned that the findings should not be interpreted to mean that people with evidence of prior infection are protected from getting the virus again and continued to urge people to get vaccinated or a booster.
It examined the seroprevalence from September 2021 through February by age group in a national survey that estimates the proportion of the population in the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico who were infected. Overall, it increased from 33.5% to 57.7% over the study period.
But the increase was greater among the young, from 44.2% to 75.2% among children up to 11 years of age and from 45.6% to 74.2% among adolescents and teens 12-17 years old. By contrast, it increased from 36.5% to 63.7% among ages 18-49, 28.8% to 49.8% among those ages 50-64 and from 19.1% to 33.2% among those 65 and older.
Vaccination rates are higher among older people, perhaps explaining the lower numbers of prior infections. But the study also noted that they may be more careful than younger people about protecting themselves by avoiding crowded situations and wearing masks.
The study comes as COVID- 19 cases have increased, particularly in the Northeast, though they remain well below the levels driven by newer omicron subvariants BA.2 and BA.2.12.1. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday that cases have increased nationally nearly 23% and hospital admissions are up almost 7% in the past week, though deaths decreased 13%. In California, the seven-day average of new cases is up 80% since April 1, while the decline in hospitalizations appears to have stalled.
While cases and hospitalizations are on the rise in the U.S., Walensky said that so far there are no indications of an increase in intensive-care needs that would suggest the latest variants are causing more serious disease.
World Health Organization Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday that “globally, reported cases and deaths continue to decline,” with 15,000 deaths reported over the last week marking the lowest weekly total since March 2020. But while he called that a “welcome trend,” he said he’s concerned about reduced testing for the virus that could delay responses to potent new variants.
Vaccines: Moderna is seeking to be the first to offer COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest American children, as it asked the Food and Drug Administration Thursday to clear low-dose shots for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
Frustrated families are waiting impatiently for a chance to protect the nation’s littlest kids as all around them people shed masks and other public health precautions — even though highly contagious coronavirus mutants continue to spread. Already about three-quarters of children of all ages show signs they’ve been infected at some point during the pandemic.
Moderna submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration that it hopes will prove two lowdose shots can protect children younger than 6 — although the effectiveness wasn’t nearly as high in kids tested during the omicron surge as earlier in the pandemic.
Masks: State officials have lifted mask mandates for most places, but not everywhere. Plus, six million Southern Californians will soon have to limit outdoor watering to one day a week. We’re in a particularly confusing moment of the pandemic, when most Americans are vaccinated or have already had Covid-19 and an especially contagious variant of the coronavirus is spreading nationwide. And in this latest difficult-to-navigate phase, rules about masking seem to shift hourly and differ from town to town.
A Florida judge last week struck down a national mask mandate for public transit, in opposition of C.D.C. recommendations. Philadelphia lifted its indoor mask mandate on Friday, four days after instating it. Meanwhile, at least a dozen universities are reintroducing mask mandates this week.
If you’re confused, you’re not alone. Given the uncertainty, The New York Times published a guide to the latest masking science, which includes advice from experts about when it makes the most sense to mask up.
California officials lifted our statewide indoor mask mandate in February. The state’s school mask requirement ended in March, with many large school districts following suit in April. Last week, in alignment with federal guidance, the state called off mandatory masking on buses and trains.
Though California officials still strongly recommend that you wear a mask in indoor public settings, this is, as far as rules go, the most unmasked we’ve been since the pandemic began. And despite a recent rise in coronavirus cases, it seems unlikely that the state is going to hand down additional mandates anytime soon.
Still, there are a few places in the Golden State where you must keep a face covering on, whether or not you’re vaccinated. Everywhere in California, you are required to wear a mask in the following places that are considered high risk for coronavirus transmission:
- Health care settings, such as hospitals and doctor’s offices
- Emergency shelters and cooling centers
- Jails and prisons
- Homeless shelters
- Long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes
The only people exempted from these rules are children under 2 and people with a medical condition or disability that prevents them from wearing a mask or being able to communicate while wearing a mask, according to state guidelines.
For most Californians, that’s everything you need to know about masking rules. Unless you live in Los Angeles County.
In Los Angeles County, home to one in four Californians, masks are still required on all public transit and transportation hubs, including airports, buses and ride shares, officials announced late last week.
The order, which went into effect on Friday, comes as cases have risen in the county by nearly 70 percent over the past month, according to the New York Times tracker. Officials will reassess the order in 30 days or if transmission rates fall significantly before then.
The county’s public health director, Barbara Ferrer, put it this way: “While many of us would like to be at a place where masking is no longer necessary, with substantial transmission and a more infectious variant, one of the easiest things we can do to prevent infection is to wear a well-fitting mask.”
The Economy: The U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of the year, and faces threats from high inflation and rising interest rates, yet economists foresee a return to growth for the rest of 2022 based on the strength of the job market and consumer spending. The first quarterly decline in gross domestic product since the pandemic hit in 2020 — a 1.4% drop on an annualized basis — is not likely a prelude to recession, economists say. That may bring little comfort to President Joe Biden and Democrats, who face midterm elections this year in which rising prices for food, energy and other essentials will be a major theme of Republican opposition.
Two trends were key drivers of the U.S. economy’s decline last quarter, according to Thursday’s Commerce Department report:
• Imports soared nearly 20% as Americans spent heavily on foreign- made goods, while exports fell almost 6% as growth slowed overseas — a widening of the trade deficit that subtracted 3.2 percentage points from GDP.
• Businesses had built inventories aggressively ahead of last year’s holiday shopping season, when they feared pandemic-related supply shortages, so they restocked more slowly at the start of 2022, denting GDP by 0.8 percentage points.
As a result, the nation’s total output of goods and services fell far below the 6.9% annual growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2021.
However, rising wages supported robust spending by households, and higher profits drove investment by companies. These factors suggest strong fundamentals for the U.S. economy, even in the face of challenges from the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the Federal Reserve’s plans to raise interest rates to fight inflation.
The U.S. economy is in an unusual and challenging position.
The job market — the most important pillar of the economy — remains robust, with the unemployment rate near a 50-year low of 3.6%, and wages rising steadily. In the January-March quarter, businesses and consumers increased their spending at a 3.7% annual rate after adjusting for inflation. Economists consider these trends a better gauge of the economy’s core strength than the latest GDP figure.
Still, serious threats have emerged. Supply chain disruptions in China and elsewhere are still a pandemic-era reality, and the war in Ukraine is contributing to higher inflation, which erodes consumers’ spending power. Last month, prices jumped 8.5% from a year earlier, the fastest such rise in four decades.
The first quarter’s weak showing contrasts with last year’s robustrebound from the pandemic, which was fueled in part by vast government aid and ultra-low interest rates. With stimulus checks and other government supports having ended, consumer spending has slowed from its blistering pace in the first half of last year.
Last quarter’s negative GDP number also undercuts a key political message of President Biden. The president has pointed to rapid growth as a counterpoint to soaring inflation. Compounding Biden’s difficulties, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising COVID-19 cases overseas are weighing on the economy and heightening inflation pressures. Many companies are also still struggling to obtain the parts and supplies they need from tangled supply chains.
COVID-19 lockdowns in China are likely to perpetuate supply shortages this year. Ford and General Motors said this week that they still can’t get all the computer chips they need.
The global economy is expected to grow more slowly this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. It foresees the Ukraine war and COVID-19 slowing global growth to 3.6% this year, down from 6.1% last year.
From Jonathan Landsner for the Pasadena Star-News: California optimism hit a 10-month high in April despite a host of worries from the war in Ukraine and a cooling-yet-inflating economy at home. Source: The Conference Board polls shoppers monthly, creating various consumer confidence indexes, including one for California.
The Trend: The overall statewide index was 125.9 in April — up from a revised 122.4 a month earlier and up from 118 a year ago.
That’s a 3% one-month gain and a 7% gain over 12 months. California confidence averaged 113 in the five years before the pandemic. Now let’s look at two measures inside the statewide index … Current conditions: California consumers’ view improved, with the index at 161.9 for the month — up from 151.7 a month earlier and above 111.9 a year earlier. This measure averaged 141 in 2015-19.
Outlook: Shoppers are skittish, with the index at 101.9 for the month — down from 102.9 the previous month and down from 122.1 a year earlier. This measure averaged 94 in 2015-19.