From The New York Times: The Biden administration plans to let the coronavirus public health emergency expire in May, the White House said on Monday, January 30th, a sign that federal officials believe the pandemic has moved into a new, less dire phase.
The White House wants to keep the emergency in place for several more months so hospitals, health providers and health officials can prepare for a host of changes that will come when it ends, officials said. Millions of Americans have received free Covid tests, treatments and vaccines during the pandemic, and not all of that will continue to be free once the emergency is declared over.
The White House said on Monday that the nation needed an orderly transition out of the public health emergency. The administration said it also intended to allow a separate declaration of a national emergency to expire in May.
The Biden administration has renewed the public health emergency every 90 days, and it had pledged to alert states 60 days before ending it. It last renewed the public health emergency this month, and the declaration is set to expire in mid-April. The administration now plans to extend it for an additional month before allowing it to lapse in May.
California's coronavirus emergency declaration will expire on Feb. 28, almost three years after it began. It gave Gov. Gavin Newsom broad power to issue mandates intended to slow the spread of the virus, as well as to bypass certain state laws. He announced in October that he would end the emergency in February, and a spokesperson from his office confirmed on Wednesday that that’s still his plan.
Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County public health director, recently said that she had started eating indoors at restaurants — for the first time since the pandemic began.
The coronavirus is unlikely to burn out altogether, and it’s possible that the emergence of new variants could lead to another big surge, Brewer told me. But for now, he said, the virus seems likely to follow a pattern similar to influenza — circulating year-round and peaking in the colder months.
As for the statewide emergency declaration, Newsom’s administration said it would seek legislative approval to make two of the emergency provisions permanent: allowing nurses to continue to dispense Covid medications like Paxlovid, and allowing lab workers to process Covid-19 tests on their own.
The latest sign that California is easing out of the pandemic and into the endemic phase: The state has dropped its plan to require the COVID-19 vaccination for K-12 students as the state of emergency comes to an end Feb. 28, after nearly three years.
Cases:
Pasadena Public Health reported 12 new COVID-19 cases on February 2nd. There were no reported fatalities.
Los Angeles County reported 1,321 new cases on Groundhog Day (2/2) and 14 deaths related to COVID-19.
Vaccines:
Three years into the pandemic, it has become evident that Covid-19 isn’t going anywhere, and neither are vaccine boosters. Last week, an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously agreed that the vaccine and booster process for Covid-19 needs to be simplified in terms of which version of the shot is offered and when and how often people should receive it. There was less consensus about what that simplified process will look like.
When the bivalent booster, which targets both the original coronavirus strain and the BA.4/BA.5 Omicron subvariants, was rolled out in September 2022, there was little data about how well it would work. But the basis for the decision was relatively clear: The virus is evolving, and so should the vaccine. Over the past few months, as the results of initial studies have come in, the picture has gotten murkier.
The good news is the bivalent booster does appear to provide protection against severe infection, which is critical for high-risk individuals. It “is doing a much better job of protection, both for symptomatic infections” and hospitalizations, said Dr. Eric Topol, executive vice president of Scripps Research.
For people who are high-risk — namely adults age 50 and older and people who are immunocompromised or have an underlying condition — the evidence is straightforward: If you haven’t gotten the bivalent booster, you should. Just make sure it’s been at least three months since your last shot or Covid infection.
Supporting this recommendation is data presented by Pfizer and Moderna at the F.D.A. meeting, along with four studies published in January in The New England Journal of Medicine. That research found that people who received the bivalent booster had an increase in antibody levels. This suggests it improved immune defenses against the virus, but it didn’t protect against the new strains as well as it did against the old ones.
The biggest jump was in antibodies that target the original strain of the coronavirus (although that version is no longer circulating, so it’s unclear how helpful those antibodies are). Antibodies that target BA.5, which was the dominant strain last summer and fall, also increased substantially. The smallest boost was seen for antibodies that defend against some of the newer Omicron subvariants that have more antibody-evading mutations, such as BQ.1.1 and XBB (the current dominant strain, XBB.1.5, wasn’t circulating when the experiments were conducted).
When it comes to protecting against severe disease, the bivalent booster fares well in the real world, research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. One study found that it was at least 38 percent effective at preventing hospitalization for Covid-19, and the more time that had passed since someone’s previous vaccine dose, the more the bivalent booster helped. Similarly, a second study, focusing on adults 65 and older, found that people who had received the bivalent booster an average of 30 days prior were 73 percent less likely to be hospitalized than those who’d received only the original vaccine or the vaccine plus the initial single-strain (or monovalent) booster an average of nearly a year prior.
The boosters also appear to be safe in an overwhelming majority of cases. Last month, the F.D.A. and C.D.C. issued a joint statement that said there was preliminary evidence the bivalent booster may raise the risk of stroke in adults over the age of 65. However, updated data revealed that it was because the comparison group had fewer strokes than normal, not because the recently boosted group had more.
If you’re low-risk, recommendations are less clear
For people who are under 50 and don’t have an increased risk of severe disease, there’s more of a debate about whether another shot is worth it. The booster is still effective, but getting it is less critical.
Grant Opportunity:
Los Angeles Country announced the launch of a new Economic Opportunity Grant (EOG) program, which will distribute more than $54 million across 6,800 grants to small and microbusinesses and nonprofit agencies, prioritizing the most COVID-impacted and highest-need communities and organizations in LA County. Phase One, now accepting applications, targets microbusinesses with under $50k in revenue and will award grants of $2,500 per grant, funded by the California Office of the Small Business Advocate.
Interested applicants can visit grants.lacounty.gov today.
Stay tuned for launch of Phase Two in February 2023. Grants in Phase 2, funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) will award $15,000 or $20,000 per grant for small businesses, and $20,000 or $25,000 per grant for non-profits. EOG will run through May 2023 or when available funds are expended.
The Economy:
US unexpectedly adds 517,000 jobs in January: US jobs growth unexpectedly rebounded in January, underscoring the momentum in the economy despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to damp demand.
The US Federal Reserve increased its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, marking a return to slower, more orthodox rate rises after it ratcheted up the cost of borrowing last year.
The European Central Bank raised interest rates by half a percentage point on Thursday, in a sign of its concern that inflation will remain high despite the recent fall in energy prices.
The Bank of England has increased interest rates by half a percentage point to a 15-year high of 4 per cent, even as it signalled that further rises would depend on economic data.
From PasadenaNOW and CalMatters: Last year was a strong one for California’s $3.4 trillion economy.
The state added 621,400 jobs, finally regaining the nearly 3 million that were initially lost during the COVID-19 pandemic as Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down major economic sectors. The year ended with a near record-low 4.1% unemployment.
All good. In fact, some economists believe that California’s job growth is so strong that only a shortage of workers – due to a decline in the number of Californians seeking work – is a major impediment to expansion.
That’s the economic upside.
The downside is that no one seems to know whether the good times will continue or the state will experience one of its periodic recessions, which tend to hit about once a decade.
It’s not yet clear whether the system’s efforts will work as planned and economists are mixed in their projections of what lies ahead economically for the nation, not only because of the Federal Reserve’s actions but other factors, such as the war in the Ukraine.
Newsom’s proposed 2023-24 budget reflects that uncertainty.
“The biggest economic threat is continued inflation,” an analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California contends. “While December consumer data marked six straight months of slowing inflation, prices have not yet abated enough. Until that happens, the Federal Reserve will likely continue to take steps to slow the economy, increasing the risk of a recession.”
The most powerful engine of California’s economy, and therefore of the state’s revenue stream, is the Bay Area-centered technology industry, whose major firms are sharply reducing payrolls through layoffs after expanding during the pandemic to serve the shift to work-at-home employment.
Despite the layoffs, the region was still adding jobs during December – in fact 84% of the jobs California gained during the month, which attests to the mixed economic signals the state is experiencing.
“We don’t see anything catastrophic happening with tech,” Patrick Kallerman, vice president of research with the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, said. “I don’t see the tech industry collapsing.”
While economists debate over the economic future and Capitol politicians dicker over how to deal with the projected deficit, their constituents are turning sour.
A November poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found high pessimism about the economy with 69% of Californians surveyed saying they expect bad times in the next year and 62% expecting periods of higher unemployment during the next five years.
The eurozone looks set to avoid a recession after its economy grew unexpectedly during the final quarter of 2022, despite soaring energy prices, rising borrowing costs and record high inflation.
The International Monetary Fund said on Monday that it expected the global economy to slow this year as central banks continued to raise interest rates to tame inflation, but it also suggested that output would be more resilient than previously anticipated and that a global recession would probably be avoided.
The I.M.F. upgraded its economic growth projections for 2023 and 2024 in its closely watched World Economic Outlook report, pointing to resilient consumers and the reopening of China’s economy as among the reasons for a more optimistic outlook.
The fund warned, however, that the fight against inflation was not over and urged central banks to avoid the temptation to change course.
Global output is projected to slow to 2.9 percent in 2023, from 3.4 percent last year, before rebounding to 3.1 percent in 2024. Inflation is expected to decline to 6.6 percent this year from 8.8 percent in 2022 and then to fall to 4.3 percent next year.
After a succession of downgrades in recent years as the pandemic worsened and Russia’s war in Ukraine intensified, the I.M.F.’s latest forecasts were rosier than those the fund released in October.