Cases: On Friday, September 22nd, Pasadena reported 22 new cases of COVID and no new fatalities. 99.9% of Pasadena's have had at least one does of the vaccine. 93% are fully vaccinated. The LA County Department of Health reported 1641 new cases on Saturday, September 23rd. (This includes cases in Pasadena and Long Beach which have their own health departments.) LA County reported 13 deaths on Saturday.
Vaccines: Newly formulated Covid booster shots are now available to those 12 and older, tailored to protect against both the original version of the virus and the Omicron variant. But the distribution of the new shots in California, as in much of the rest of the country, has come with little fanfare.
This quiet rollout may be an acknowledgment of how many people have moved on from the pandemic as Covid cases wane and are unlikely to be receptive to another stentorian campaign, even in the vaccine-friendly Golden State, said Bob Wachter, the chair of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Still, plenty of people have gotten the new booster shot already. California’s public health department said it had received 2.8 million doses of the new vaccine so far, and had administered about 618,000 since Sept. 6, when it first became available.
Masks: Saying community levels of COVID-19 transmission in the city declined since Sept. 5, the Pasadena Public Health Department revised its health order requirement that face masks be worn on buses, trains and other mass transit vehicles into only a recommendation on Friday.
Face coverings are now only “recommended” and not required on transit vehicles, including ride-hail vehicles, and at transit hubs.
Los Angeles County on Friday will end its local health order requiring masking while aboard public transit or inside transportation hubs, such as airports.
For months, L.A. has been the only California county to still mandate widespread masking in such settings — though some individual operators, most notably the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit commuter rail system, also have such rules in place.
L.A. County health officials had previously cited the heightened risks of coronavirus spread and exposure for transit workers as rationale for keeping the order in place. But with the numbers of reported coronavirus cases and hospitalizations having declined notably in recent weeks, health officials said the time has come to relax the order.
Even with the mandate set to expire, though, officials said they still strongly recommend masking in interior transit settings — and “strongly recommend, from our perspective, means it’s a great idea to keep your mask on,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.
The Economy: Another sizable rate hike-The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.75 percentage points for the third time in a row and signaled its intention to keep monetary policy tight as it tries to hit the brakes on the overheating US economy.
The Federal Open Market Committee lifted the federal funds rate to a new target range of 3 per cent to 3.25 per cent following its two-day policy meeting, advancing its most aggressive monetary tightening campaign since the early 1980s.
Citigroup is dramatically scaling back the amount it lends to asset managers, including private equity firms, as the US bank races to meet tough new capital rules, according to people familiar with the matter.
Southland home prices hold steady in August - By Andrew Khouri for the LA Times: The Southern California median home price remained unchanged in August from the previous month as rising mortgage rates made houses even less affordable for many people.
The six-county region’s median held steady at $740,000, the fourth consecutive month prices didn’t increase, according to data released Tuesday by real estate firm DQNews.
Sales of new and existing houses, condos and townhomes dropped 28.3% from a year earlier. The housing market has slowed sharply in recent months, a consequence of rising mortgage rates that priced many would-be buyers out of the market.
Rates have more than doubled in the last year and topped 6% last week for the first time since 2008. The steep rise in borrowing costs adds more than $1,000 to the monthly payment for a median-priced home of $740,000 — a cost many can’t afford. The Southern California median price — the point at which half of homes sold for more and half for less — is 2.6% less than the all-time high reached this spring.
When it comes to individual counties, the median is down more than regionwide, ranging from 2.8% below the all-time high in Riverside County to 6.7% below the peak in Orange County.
Compared with July, the median fell in all counties except Riverside. In Orange County, the median dropped below $1 million, a threshold the pricey county hit for the first time in March.
By whatever measure, prices in all counties are higher than a year earlier, a reflection of strong demand before rates shot up.
Regionwide, the median is 8.8% higher than a year earlier, which combined with higher rates means housing is drastically more unaffordable than in 2021.
The year-over-year increase in prices is getting smaller. In April, prices were up nearly 17% from a year earlier, and a growing number of economists predict home prices will turn negative on a year-over-year basis in 2023.
But few, if any, major analysts predict declines similar to those seen in the Great Recession.
That’s in large part because even in the event of a recession, experts say tighter lending standards should limit the number of foreclosures, a wave of which sent Southern California prices down 50% from 2007 to 2009.
According to the California Assn. of Realtors, home prices statewide and in Southern California are likely to fall about 7% in 2023 compared with 2022, in part because mortgage rates are expected to stay elevated.
County data
- Los Angeles County: The median price was $820,000, down 2.4% from July and up 4.5% from a year earlier. Sales dropped 28.6% from August 2021.
- Orange County: The median price was $984,000, down 1.6% from July and up 9.3% from a year earlier. Sales dropped 31.5% from August 2021.
- Riverside County: The median price was $581,500, up 0.3% from July and up 10.8% from a year earlier. Sales dropped 24% from August 2021.
- San Bernardino County: The median price was $500,000, down 2.9% from July and up 7.5% from a year earlier. Sales dropped 31.4% from August 2021.
- Ventura County: The median price was $782,250, down 2.9% from July and up 5.6% from a year earlier. Sales dropped 27.7% from August 2021.
- San Diego County: The median price was $799,000, down 0.1% from July and up 10.2% from a year earlier. Sales dropped 27.1% from August 2021.
Airfares soar as fuel prices descend-Winter holiday travel may be costliest in years, and more flight disruptions are likely. TICKET PRICES for Thanksgiving are about 25% higher than 2021 levels, and fares for flights for Christmas and New Year’s are up 28%, Cheapair.com said. Jet fuel prices have been dropping dramatically since May, and the nation’s airlines now have more workers on staff than before the pandemic. So Americans preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas travel should expect lower airfares and fewer delays and cancellations, right? Don’t get your hopes up. Ticket prices for domestic and international flights scheduled around the Thanksgiving holiday are trending 22% higher than at the same time in 2019, with Christmas flights up even more, according to the travel site Hopper . They are the highest fares in about five years.
A federal watchdog investigating the distribution of pandemic relief funds has tripled its estimate of the amount of money paid out in unemployment insurance that can be attributed to certain forms of fraud.
The watchdog, the office of the inspector general of the Labor Department, previously attributed about $16 billion to duplicate payments or payments made to dead people, individuals with suspicious email accounts or federal prisoners. The office now says the federal government probably made $45.6 billion in such payments.
Investigations by the inspector general’s office have led to criminal charges against more than 1,000 people accused of fraudulently receiving unemployment insurance benefits during the pandemic, the office said in a statement on Thursday.