Pasadena: Pasadena’s 30 new cases on Saturday raised its total since the pandemic began to 3,311; our death toll of 131 did not change. Pasadena announced 55 new detected cases of COVID-19 and one new death in the city on Thursday as public health officials throughout the region and the state scrambled to stem the accelerating transmission of the virus, including a nightly “limited” stay at home order issued by the governor.
City officials reported 63 cases of the Coronavirus on Sunday and no additional fatalities marking the second highest total recorded in one day.The count breaks a previous record for the second highest day of 61 cases recorded last week. Sunday’s report brings the city’s total to 3,374 and 131deaths.
As of Monday morning, Pasadena has not closed restaurants for outdoor dining. LA COunty ordered all restaurants under its jurisdiction to cease outdoor dining after Wednesday evening at 10pm.
Prior to Tuesday, when 61 cases were detected, the city hadn’t seen so many infections in a single day since May 20, according to city data.
The new death, which occurred earlier this week, was that of a 70-year-old man.
A significant portion of Thursday’s infections resulted from a single birthday party attended by members of three households, she said.
Over the prior week, Pasadena’s saw an average of 32.6 new infections each day, records show.
Because of the dramatically increasing numbers of local COVID-19 infections, the City of Pasadena is reminding the community about existing health orders in place to protect ourselves and others around us from infection.
To further mitigate the spread of the virus, the City is instituting new pandemic safeguards and restrictions, effective Friday, Nov. 20.
Reminders regarding some of the rules already in place include:
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Retail store occupancy may not exceed 25% of maximum capacity (as defined by the Fire Code). This capacity limit was previously established by the California Blueprint for a Safer Economy for local health jurisdictions in counties in Purple Tier 1.
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Limitations on gatherings are still in place: people are permitted to gather with no more than 2 other households, for 2 hours or less, with all attendees wearing face coverings and maintaining a physical distance of 6 feet or more between households.
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Sports competitions, such as softball and soccer games, are still not permitted.
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Non-essential offices must remain closed for in-person operations and only conduct work remotely, as previously established by the California Blueprint for a Safer Economy.
The new restrictions are as follows:
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Personal care services that require either the customer or the staff to remove their face covering, such as facials and shaves, are not permitted. All public health protocols must continue to be followed for other personal care services, including a requirement for services to be offered by appointment only, and as many services as possible provided outdoors.
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Personal care services are now limited to 25% maximum capacity (as defined by the Fire Code).
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Gatherings must meet the limitations stated above (outdoor, 2 hours or less, with face coverings worn and physical distancing between households) and may not exceed a total of 15 people from 3 or fewer households.
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Restaurants, breweries and bars must cease service in their on-site, outdoor dining areas as of 10 p.m. and close their on-site dining areas thereafter until 5 a.m.
Revised COVID-19 Public Health Order for Pasadena
This week, Pasadena's Public Health Officer released a revised health order to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Businesses and their employees are reminded that while within the city limits of Pasadena, the Pasadena Public Health Officer's Order applies.
With regards to business, the Public Health Order issued this week does three things:
- Restaurants, breweries and bars must cease service in their on-site outdoor dining operations by 10 pm. Take-out and drive-thru operations may continue past 10 pm, if allowed by the business' use permit. This nightly restriction lifts at 5 am.
- Personal care services are now limited to 25% maximum occupancy (as defined by the Fire Code).
- Personal care services that require the removal of a mask by the customer or the employee are not permitted.
To read the full text of the Revised Pasadena Public Health Order, click here.
To read the Revised Guidance for Restaurants and Breweries, click here.
To read the Revised Guidance for Personal Care Services, click here.
LA County: Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said Thursday that the virus was spreading at a “dangerous pace” as it announced 5,031 new cases of COVID-19 and 29 additional deaths on Friday. The current spike in infections has exceeded the last major surge over the summer, officials said. Warily watching daily caseloads that could soon trigger more restrictive stay-at-home orders, Los Angeles County public health officials reported 4,522 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, an unnerving surge that shows no sign of relenting.
Reacting, LA County has closed all restaurants to everything but take-out after Wednesday. As of Sunday, the Pasadena Department of Health has not followed suit.
Hospitalizations, too, are posting dramatic increases, up to 1,391 on Saturday — the highest since August — representing a major increase from a month ago when daily hospitalizations were 730. About 26% of patients are being treated in intensive-care units, officials said.
The county has reported 17,769 new cases for a fourday average of 4,442. Today’s report will be closely monitored as officials watch for a five-day average that would switch on the tougher rules.
Since March, L.A. County has recorded 353,232 COVID-19 infections and 7,363 deaths.
From the New York Times: Officials in Los Angeles County — which has for months struggled more than many other parts of the state — also announced more stringent restrictions than required by the state, including a curfew for restaurants and nonessential stores. Starting on Friday, they must close from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.The county ordered restaurants operating outdoors to halve their capacity, and officials said they may be forced to resort to restrictions more like the aggressive lockdown that kept Californians at home in March if conditions do not quickly improve.[Read more about what counts as an essential business from March.] Earlier in the week, Dr. Bob Wachter, a professor and chair of the University of California, San Francisco’s department of medicine, said that the state’s actions were warranted to curb the spread of the virus, particularly in light of the imminent holiday.“Whether or not it’s enough, I guess we’ll see,” he said. A Times analysis shows that states that imposed more restrictions have less bad outbreaks, and California was the first state to put in place a stay-at-home order in March. Less is known specifically about the effectiveness of curfews, but New York officials recently took a similar step.
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California: California as a whole has seen more than 1 million infections, with a record 13,000 new cases recorded Thursday. As of Saturday, there have been 1,092,354 infections and 18,642 deaths due to COVID-19 in our state. 5,745 people were hospitalized as of Saturday.
The curfew applies to 41 of the state’s 58 counties that are in the “purple” tier, the most restrictive of four state tiers allowing various stages of economic reopening. Those counties encompass 94% of the nearly 40 million people living in the most populous U.S. state. L.A. County hasn’t budged from the purple tier since the program was instituted.
From the New York Times: California officials on Thursday announced a curfew aimed at quickly curbing a surge of coronavirus infections, prohibiting nearly all residents of the state, the nation’s most populous, from leaving their homes to do nonessential work or to gather from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., in the most severe lockdown since the state put in place its first stay-at-home order in March. [Track California’s coronavirus cases by county.] The new stay-at-home order is described as more limited than the spring order; in addition to applying only overnight, it has a built-in expiration date for now, and applies only to so-called purple tier counties, which are under the state’s most stringent restrictions in its reopening plan.It will go into effect Saturday night and will remain in place until the morning of Dec. 21.As in the spring order, residents can still go outside for walks or to go to work in what are deemed essential jobs, like in grocery stores, and it doesn’t apply to people experiencing homelessness. Restaurants, which are deemed essential, can continue to do takeout and delivery. But it effectively forces all restaurants to close in-person operations at 10 p.m., even if they are operating outdoors.
As with the spring order, it is likely to be enforced differently across the state, depending on the severity of violations and the attitudes of local leaders. Officials didn’t make clear what enforcement might look like.[Read the full order here.] The move comes amid what California officials and experts have described as an alarming — but not yet irreversible — wave of new infections, heading into a dangerous Thanksgiving week. According to The Times’s database, the state was reporting a weekly average of 9,974 new cases per day, more than double the average two weeks ago.
Also, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the launch of the California Rebuilding Fund, a new loan program built to support California’s small businesses as they adapt and navigate the effects of COVID-19. The Fund is a partnership between public and private sector entities to provide California small businesses—particularly businesses in underbanked areas—with access to responsible, affordable capital to survive and rebuild from this crisis.
The California Rebuilding Fund, which includes an anchor commitment from the IBank, will offer loans that are flexible, transparent and designed to help sustain small businesses through these challenging economic times. The funds are being deployed by participating community lenders, and businesses with up to 50 full-time employees and gross revenues of less than $2.5 million in 2019 may be eligible to apply. Click Here to Learn More
US: The number of people killed by the coronavirus in the U.S. surpassed a quarter million this week, and now tops 253,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. That’s enough to empty out dozens of counties in the country’s heartland if all the deaths were consolidated in a central place, Lauren Tierney and Tim Meko report for The Washington Post, with accompanying graphics. Another visualization shows a month-by-month map of the counties as they hit the peak number of cases, with virtually the entire interior of the country lit up in November.
The number of Covid-19 hospitalizations nationwide set a new record every day since Nov. 10, rising 28% over the past nine days. The U.S. hit its previous record of 59,924 hospitalizations on April 15, as the new coronavirus overwhelmed health-care systems in New York and New Jersey in the early days of the pandemic. During another surge over the summer, in which the country’s most populous states saw significant increases in infections, hospitalizations grew to 59,712 on July 23. In the latest surge, affecting nearly every state in the country, the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 surpassed April’s high on Nov. 10, when 62,062 hospitalizations were recorded, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Just over a week later, the number of ospitalizations in the U.S. has grown to 79,410. The increase has strained hospital staffs and intensive care units across the country. Nowhere is that more acute than Wisconsin, which has seen a prolonged and precipitous rise in new infections for two months.
According to the latest available data from the state’s Department of Health Services, 89% of all hospital beds are in use and 90.2% of ICU beds are occupied. The state recorded another record number of daily cases on Wednesday, topping 8,500.
Consequently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving next week, The Wall Street Journal reports, as even gathering with one extra household poses too great a risk. “The tragedy that could happen is that one of your family members, from coming together in this family gathering, actually could end up being hospitalized and severely ill and die,” Henry Walke, the incident manager for the CDC Covid-19 response, told reporters.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly urged Americans on Thursday not to travel for Thanksgiving, in one of its sharpest warnings to date as an official said the agency is alarmed by the exponential growth in Covid-19 cases and the rise in both hospitalizations and deaths. With the pandemic in its 11th month in the U.S., many families are grappling with whether to meet up with friends or family for traditional celebrations. About 50 million people are expected to travel in the coming days, which is traditionally the busiest travel period of the year. But the holiday comes at a particularly precarious time in the current virus surge, and doctors and government officials said even gathering with one other household is too much of a risk.
From the Wall Street Journal: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he would allow several emergency Federal Reserve lending programs to expire, sparking an unusual public split between the Treasury and the central bank, which pressed for an extension. As a result, on Dec. 31 several novel Fed programs that backed corporate credit and municipal-borrowing markets and provided loans to small and midsize businesses and nonprofits during the coronavirus pandemic will expire.
Two Federal Reserve officials at the heart of central bank decision- making this year sent warnings Thursday about what lies ahead for the economy as coronavirus cases spiral higher. Loretta Mester of the Cleveland Fed and Robert Kaplan of the Dallas Fed both expressed worry about the economy in separate Bloomberg Television interviews, but were reticent in detailing what more the Fed could do to help. Both regional Fed bank presidents hold voting roles on the interest- rate setting Federal Open
U.S. home sales rose to a 14-year high last month, a rare bright spot for the economy as ultralow borrowing costs and the sudden shift in living references
during the pandemic power the market. October’s gains marked the fifth straight monthly increase and one of the best stretches for the housing market in several years. While home sales showed some signs of life before the coronavirus outbreak, they are running much hotter now.
The number of applications for unemployment benefits rose sharply last week, indicating continued challenges for the U.S. economic recovery as coronavirus infections increased around the country. Initial claims for jobless benefits, a proxy for layoffs, rose to a seasonally adjusted 742,000 last week, up from the 711,000 filed a week earlier. That level is more than three times higher than the roughly 210,000 typically filed each week in the first two months of 2020, though it is down sharply from a peak of nearly seven million in late March. At present levels, initial jobless claims are still higher than they were in any other recession on record.
From Fair Warning: Pfizer is asking U.S. regulators to authorize emergency use of the Covid-19 vaccine the company developed in partnership with the German company BioNTech. So far, the vaccine appears to be 95% effective at preventing mild to severe COVID-19 disease in a large, ongoing study, Lauran Neergaard reports for the Associated Press. If the vaccine is approved, the companies could bring out the first round of shots as early as December, although the vaccine would still not be widely available to the public for months—not until after a long winter. Also: The Food and Drug Administration has issued an emergency use authorization for the first Covid home test, but has made it available by prescription only. The test, expected to cost around $50, will be available to patients of Northern California’s Sutter Health and South Florida’s Cleveland Clinic in the near future, but won’t be widely available until spring 2021, Teo Armus and Meryl Kornfield report for The Washington Post.
As coronavirus cases surge and the economy weakens, there is still no sign that Senate Republicans and House Democrats are interested in compromising on a second coronavirus relief bill, Sahil Kapur reports for NBC News. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon criticized the politicians for their inaction, saying, “I know now we have this big debate. Is it $2.2 trillion, $1.5 trillion? You gotta be kidding me. I mean just split the baby and move on. This is childish behavior on the part of our politicians.”