Cases: Pasadena Public Health reported 16 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, September 16th. There was one new fatality in the city. Pasadena has seen 35, 782 cases and 432 deaths since the pandemic began. LA County reported 1,944 new cases on Friday, September 16th and 16 deaths. LA County has recorded 3,437,648 cases and 33,447 deaths since the pandemic began. The 7-day daily average of cases is 5.65% per 100,000 people in LA County.
End of COVID is now ‘in sight’-The head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that the number of COVID-19 deaths worldwide last week was the lowest reported since March 2020, marking what could be a turning point in the years-long pandemic. At a media briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world has never been in a better position to stop COVID-19.
In its weekly report on the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said COVID-19 deaths fell by 22% in the last week, to just over 11,000 reported worldwide. There were 3.1 million new cases, a drop of 28% that continued a weeks-long decline in every part of the world.
Still, the WHO warned that relaxed coronavirus testing and surveillance in many countries means that many cases are going unnoticed. The agency issued a set of policy briefs for governments to strengthen their efforts against the coronavirus ahead of the expected winter surge of COVID-19, warning that new variants could yet undo the progress made to date.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said the organization expected future waves of the disease but was hopeful those would not cause many deaths.
Vaccines: A promising new shot against future COVID variants By Corinne Purtill for the LA Times. The new COVID-19 booster shots going into arms across the country are prized for their ability to recognize the distinctive spike protein shared by BA.4 and BA.5, the Omicron strains that account for nearly 90% of coronavirus specimens now circulating in the U.S.
But sooner or later, mutations in the spike protein will allow the virus to slip past the antibodies that are trained to recognize its predecessors. The boosters may still protect people from becoming seriously ill, but they’ll become less effective at preventing infections in the first place.
An experimental vaccine aims to solve that problem by priming the immune system to recognize both the spike protein and a second — and far more stable — viral protein.
When tested in small animals, this bivalent vaccine provided stronger protection than alternatives that targeted only one of the proteins. And, although the vaccine’s design was based on an early coronavirus strain from Wuhan, China, it remained effective against the Delta and Omicron variants.
The new shot will need to be tested in larger animals before it’s tried in people, and there’s no guarantee the results will be the same. Still, scientists said the approach could lead to a one-size-fits-all vaccine that provides more lasting protection against a virus with a proven record of spinning off new variants.
The current COVID-19 vaccines have saved an estimated 19.8 million lives around the world. Yet as the virus has evolved, their effectiveness in preventing infections has lessened, meaning more illness, more time away from work and school, and more people at risk of developing long COVID.
The situation has forced scientists to play catch-up with the variants, Hu said: “You’re always one stage behind.”
The spike protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus is in some ways the pandemic’s double-edged sword. It’s the key target of all four COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the U.S. But it’s also the part of the virus most likely to take advantage of random mutations that allow it to dodge the immunity those vaccines are intended to provide.
There’s a reason why the spike protein, or “S” in virology shorthand, is so susceptible to evolutionary pressure: It’s the part of the virus that initiates an infection by entering a host cell. If the spike can’t do its job, the virus can’t survive.
Masks: County eyes end to transit mask order By Rong-Gong Lin II and Luke Money for the LA Times: Los Angeles County’s requirement that riders wear masks aboard public transit or in transportation hubs such as airports could end this month if coronavirus case rates decline further.
And the county Department of Public Health also is moving toward ending its recommendation for universal masking in indoor public settings and businesses. Instead, health officials say, doing so would be left to personal preference.
Officials would still strongly recommend that certain individuals — including older or unvaccinated residents, and those with underlying health conditions or who live in high-poverty areas — mask up in higher-risk settings. Such spaces include those with poor air flow, are crowded or involve close contact with others.
The changes in mask rules and recommendations would occur once L.A. County falls below a threshold of fewer than 100 cases a week for every 100,000 residents. That’s equivalent to roughly 1,400 cases a day.
For the seven-day period that ended Friday, L.A. County reported about 1,700 coronavirus cases a day. On a per capita basis, that’s 116 cases a week for every 100,000 residents. Should case rates continue to decline as they did last week, Ferrer said she expects L.A. County will hit this trigger by the end of the month.
MPX (Monkeypox): County reports first MPX death. Patient was ‘severely immunocompromised’ and had been in hospital, officials say. By Luke Money and Rong-Gong Lin II for the LA Times. A Los Angeles County resident has died from MPX — the nation’s first confirmed fatality linked to the disease, public health officials said Monday.
The Economy: After marathon talks, Labor Department negotiators, rail operators and union representatives reached a tentative agreement early Thursday that may avert a debilitating nationwide train strike. S&P 500 futures ticked up initially on the news.
With less than 24 hours left, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh tweeted at 5:08 a.m. Eastern that a crisis had been avoided. “Our rail system is integral to our supply chain, and a disruption would have had catastrophic impacts on industries, travelers and families across the country,” he said.
Rail unions had been negotiating for more pay, sick leave and safer working conditions; their members must still approve the deal.
Price increases remained uncomfortably rapid in August as a broad array of goods and services became more expensive even as gas prices fell, evidence that the sustainable inflation slowdown the Federal Reserve and White House have been hoping for remains elusive.
Prices rose 8.3 percent from a year earlier, a fresh Consumer Price Index report released on Tuesday showed. While slightly better than July’s 8.5 percent, the rate was not as much of a moderation as economists had expected as rent costs, restaurant meals and medical care became more expensive. Compounding the bad news, a core measure of inflation that strips out gas and food to get a sense of underlying price trends accelerated more than forecast.
From the New York Times: Last Tuesday’s surprise of an inflation report, which showed consumer prices rose last month rather than fell, as many had predicted, continues to buffet the markets. Stocks in Asia and Europe sank this morning as fears grow that to cool off inflation, central banks, led by the Fed, will need to quash consumer demand through more aggressive interest-rate increases. Economists at Nomura and Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary, are among those arguing that the Fed should raise its benchmark rate by a full percentage point next week. The S&P 500 tumbled more than 4 percent yesterday, the biggest one-day drop since June 2020, on interest-rate jitters.
Given a year of surging prices, how could Wall Street have gotten the inflation picture so wrong? Recency bias is partly to blame. Up until last year, we’ve had a decade of relatively low inflation and interest rates. There is also positive bias, with investors thinking that the Fed would be able to contain inflation while merely slowing the economy, i.e. the elusive soft landing.
The economy is full of paradoxes. Inflation is high, but growth is low. The job market is hot, but wages are not keeping up with rising prices. And despite inflation, consumers continue to spend more. What comes next? Here are the things that still have Wall Street and economists guessing.
Is the economy good or bad?
- The good: The Times’s Ben Casselman and Lauren Leatherby evaluated 14 economic indicators and found that most pointed to a good economy. (Casselman also told The Times’s On Politics newsletter that the jobs market was “arguably very good,” but that other factors were mixed.)
- Bad: Indicators such as a slowdown in building permits and sluggish retail sales point to a worsening economy.
- What to watch: Most economic measures are trending down, but at least they’re not tumbling. If we start to see more abrupt drops in income or retail sales, then it is time to worry.
Is the job market cooling off?
- No: It doesn’t appear so. Employers added 315,000 jobs last month. There were more than 11 million open positions at the end of July.
- But: A surprising number of workers remain on the sidelines of the economy. And hiring, while still strong, is slowing.
- What to watch for: Layoffs. When unemployment rises, even modestly, during times of elevated inflation, it usually signals a recession.
What about consumers? Will they keep spending?Glass-half-full take: The fact that inflation hasn’t chilled spending suggests there is plenty of demand. And there is no sign that post-pandemic splurges on things like travel will ebb.
- Half-empty: Wages are up, but they are not up as much as inflation. Eventually inflation will limit just how much people can spend.
- What to watch for: Consumer sentiment, as measured by the University of Michigan surveys, has been improving lately. Still, the reading remains quite low, even below levels seen at the beginning of the pandemic. If that measure turns down again, that too could be a sign we are headed for a recession.
That could be about to change. The governors of California and New York, both Democrats, have bills on their desks that would require companies to post pay ranges on job advertisements. Those two states — and their outsized economies and populations — could spur most larger companies to adopt the policy nationwide, advocates and experts say. All workers could be affected, but evidence suggests that more transparent pay practices are particularly helpful for women and people of color, who are more likely to get lowballed in salary negotiations.
If California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Hochul sign their respective bills, their states will join Colorado, Washington state and several cities, including New York, that either require or plan to require such disclosure.
About 1 in 6 workers nationwide would be covered under the new and existing laws, according to Christine Hendrickson, vice president of strategic initiatives for Syndio, which sells software that helps companies promote pay equity. Other states, including Nevada and Connecticut, require employers to disclose salary ranges proactively during the hiring process.
In recent years, several states, including California, have moved to end some of the secrecy, requiring companies to provide pay information during the interview process, though, in some cases, only on request. Some have also moved to bar companies from asking prospective employees their salary histories, which tends to lock people into lower pay from their previous jobs.
But without a critical mass of states requiring disclosure, companies have tried to skirt some of the requirements.
When Colorado became the first state to enforce a rule requiring salary ranges in job postings last year, some companies advertising for remote workers began posting in their notices that Colorado workers need not apply.
Research shows that pay-disclosure laws can help combat discrimination, but that non-unionized workers could actually see their pay decline.