CASES: from PasadenaNOW: On the third anniversary of the first confirmed COVID-19 infection in Los Angeles County, the public health director reported declining overall infection statistics, while continuing to preach vigilance to avoid spreading the virus to vulnerable populations.
Barbara Ferrer told reporters Thursday during a briefing that the county over the past week averaged 960 new COVID infections per day, a dramatic drop from the beginning of the month, when 2,400 new cases were being reported.
She again warned however, that “with home testing and with people not testing … many cases go uncounted,” meaning there are more infections in the community than the official numbers reflect.
COVID-related hospitalizations also continue to fall, with the county averaging 104 new admissions per day aver the past week, a roughly 50% drop from 211 per day in early January. One number that remains elevated, however, are daily virus-related deaths. The county is averaging 19 deaths per day, according to Ferrer, who said the number has hovered around 20 per day for nearly a month. She has stressed that older residents, particularly those 80 and over, remain vulnerable to severe illness and death from the virus. She urged people to continue exercising caution around vulnerable populations, including wearing masks.
With the county moving into the “low” virus-activity level, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wearing masks indoors is now a matter of personal preference.
Masks are still required indoors at health-care and congregate-care facilities in the county, and for anyone exposed to the virus in the past 10 days, and at businesses where they are required by the owner. Ferrer said masks are highly recommended for high-risk individuals, and for people riding public transit.
The county on Thursday reported 1,095 new COVID cases, lifting the cumulative official total from throughout the pandemic to 3,672,125.
The number of COVID-positive patients in county hospitals was 729 as of Thursday, down from 755 a day earlier. Of those patients, 90 were being treated in intensive care units.
The seven-day average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was 5% on Thursday, holding roughly steady from the past week.
COVID numbers improve, spurring optimism-State is eluding winter wave of infections and hospitalizations, but caution is still urged. By Luke Money and Rong-Gong Lin II for the LA Times.
In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, winter holidays were marred by a pair of devastating waves that ripped through California, sending case counts soaring, residents to the hospital in droves and, ultimately, leaving thousands dead.
But the third winter seems to have escaped that fate. A late autumn upswing in transmission, which picked up steam after Thanksgiving, began to dissipate in mid- to late December instead of becoming the runaway train public health officials had feared. And in a stark departure from previous years, COVID-19 metrics have continued to improve in the weeks since.
Officials emphasize that the danger is not past — especially for those at higher risk of developing severe illness. There’s also a chance another problematic variant could emerge. Officials are keeping a close eye on XBB.1.5, which has been described as the most infectious edition of the virus yet.
But the fact that California navigated what was, for many, the closest thing to a normal holiday season since 2019, without a record-setting spike in infections or surge in hospitalizations, is cause for optimism — and it underscores the power of the tools at our disposal, experts say.
How did this happen?
Many residents probably enjoyed some degree of protection against the coronavirus because they have been vaccinated, previously infected or both. This means some were able to avoid being infected, while others’ immune systems were better primed to ward off severe illness.
Anti-COVID drugs — including Paxlovid and another oral medication known as molnupiravir — also probably helped by keeping higher-risk individuals from falling seriously ill.
Bivalent boosters, formulated specifically to help protect against the Omicron subvariants that have dominated in the last year, also became available in September. Uptake has been too slow for some officials’ liking, but almost 24% of eligible Californians have received the updated dose.
What do numbers show?
Case counts across California have dropped steadily since the first week of December, and so have coronavirus levels in wastewater.
In L.A. County, wastewater levels began declining in early December, although in recent weeks, they have plateaued at about 70% of last summer’s peak — still a high level of concern, as defined by health officials.
Other metrics also lend credence to the concept that coronavirus activity has slowed.
Modeling from the California Department of Public Health estimates that the spread of COVID-19 is probably decreasing statewide and has been trending downward or stable for the last month.
What about hospitals?
Though many infected with the coronavirus experience mild symptoms, or none at all, any pronounced uptick in transmission threatens to send a new wave of patients to hospitals. In 2020–21 and 2021–22, these deluges were massive and put immense pressure on healthcare systems across the state.
Although California did see a pronounced uptick in coronavirus-positive hospitalizations starting in late October and continuing through mid-December, that census has since plummeted.
On Thursday, 3,168 such patients were hospitalized statewide — a 29% drop in the last two weeks.
That figure includes those hospitalized with COVID-19-related illnesses and those who test positive incidentally after seeking care for some other reason.
With last week’s update, 71% of Californians now live in counties with a low COVID-19 community level, up from 28% the prior week.
Deaths remain a concern- As of Jan. 10, California was reporting 355 COVID-19 deaths per week.
Although that has increased lately, it remains below the summer peak of 396 and far below last winter’s peak, when 1,827 deaths were recorded for the week ending Feb. 27. More than 98,000 Californians have died from COVID-19, a toll that exceeds the entire population of cities such as Santa Monica, Mission Viejo and Redding.
Nationally, COVID-19 is responsible for far more deaths than flu. The CDC has reported more than 44,000 COVID-19 deaths since the start of October, more than double the estimated 17,000 from flu .
The Economy: US growth slowed less than expected in fourth quarter-US growth slowed marginally to 2.9 per cent on an annualised basis in the last quarter of 2022, as the country’s economy proved more resilient than expected after interest rate rises.
Keep reading
For more than a year now, the U.S. economy has faced two fundamental, interwoven challenges: Consumers wouldn’t stop spending, and prices wouldn’t stop rising.
Both trends are now showing early signs of reversing.
Consumer spending fell in both November and December, the Commerce Department said on Friday, as shoppers pulled back amid rising prices, dwindling savings and warnings of a looming recession.
Inflation is also easing: Consumer prices rose 5 percent in the year through December, according to the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure. While still much more rapid than normal, that was the slowest pace in more than a year.
Taken together, the figures paint a picture of an economy that is, at long last, coming off the boil. From the Fed’s perspective, that is good news: The central bank has spent the past year aggressively raising interest rates in an effort to force consumers and businesses alike to pull back their spending, which should result in slower price increases. Now there is mounting evidence those efforts are bearing fruit.